


Not Your Typical Brand of Summer Activities

by ColetheWolf



Series: Teen Wolf: Rewritten [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anchors, BAMF!Stiles, Bisexual Stiles Stilinski, Hints at Scott/Isaac, Hints at Stiles/Danny, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Masturbation, Open Ending, Pack Training, Slow Build, Various Forms of Wolfsbane and their Effects, pre-Sterek - Freeform, sterek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-13 13:04:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 105,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5709223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ColetheWolf/pseuds/ColetheWolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set directly after the events of season two, Stiles sets off to work with Derek and his pack in the quest to find both Erica and Boyd, who have been taken by the mysterious alpha pack. The only problem is that Stiles and Derek's individual conflicting personalities and opinions seem to clash more often than not. The question of being able to handle each other for the summer is a prevalent debate, but could their reluctant partnership evolve into something more?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Summer's Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> I know that I haven't posted anything in quite a long time, but I've been working on this fic touch-and-go for the past year. Funny enough, I created the word document with this fic on November 22th, 2014 and now we're in January 2016. Nonetheless, the idea of writing about Stiles and Derek's escapades during the summer before season three was something that I wanted to do when season 3a was still airing, but the idea of writing a full length, multi-chaptered fanfic was terrifying. I didn't get around to actually writing it until after season four aired (I think).
> 
> Anyways, this piece of work is the beginning of a new series. I'm hoping to eventually rewrite seasons 3a, 3b, and then go on to create more. I absolutely loathe the directions that the official show took, so I'm creating my own path. There will be new story-arcs, new directions for characters, and of course, missing/dead characters will be added back into the mix. And of course, Sterek is the number one focus throughout all of this. It's a slow-build, but I'm hoping to make it as fantastic as possible.
> 
> The rating of this story in particular may change. Right now, I've set it as "Mature", but I'm still confused as to where the line between "mature" and "explicit" remains. We'll see how it goes. Also, the work is unbeta'd. I'm the one who read through it and tried to weed out any sort of problems I detected, but I'm not perfect. If you spot any serious errors, please let me know.
> 
> I hope you enjoy.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles' original plans for the summer change drastically.

The second semester of Stiles’ sophomore year in high school had certainly been a wild ride. Between the school’s most popular lacrosse jock turning into a vicious, murderous were-lizard, and a psychotic “holier than thou” ex-werewolf hunter showing up to kill everybody in sight, Stiles had received more than he bargained for when his best friend became a creature of the night.

Lucky for him, the Kanima’s reign of terror was over and Gerard was gone—hopefully dead and rotting in a pool of black blood somewhere. The pile up of mysterious, supernaturally related murders in the local Sheriff Department’s office were back down to stale _zero_. Beacon Hills was back to being just as average and as boring as it had always been. The air in the town had cleaned out, and a beautiful silence of peaceful relaxation had settled around. Stiles felt like he could move on with his life—move onto fantasizing about how cool being a junior would be when school started back up in August.

It was late in the evening. The sun was low in the sky, leaving a gradient of yellows, oranges, and pinks to fill the darkening sky. The trees had already begun to turn back as they became silhouetted. It was the perfect time to cruise around the town, because all the main roads in Beacon Hills were fairly empty. Everybody was back at home after a long day’s work, resting, and eating dinner.

Eating dinner was something that Stiles knew he should probably be back at home doing, but he had elected to drive around the town and wind down a little bit. He would have probably hung out with Scott—playing video games or practicing lacrosse at the open field near their neighborhood—but Scott had signed up for summer school classes and was putting all of his free-time into studying for PSATs.

It felt good to be alone with his own thoughts for a change. He took a couple hours to himself, and when his stomach started to cause a commotion due to hunger, Stiles decided to head home.

As Stiles made his way back to his house, the gas indicator light on his jeep’s dashboard flashed on. He figured that since he was already out and about, he’d stop by the nearest gas station and fill up. That way, he wouldn’t have to do it the next day when he wanted to go somewhere.

Stiles pulled into the gas station and parked his jeep next to a vacant pump. The gas station was one of the smallest in town—only four available pumps, and a small convenience store connected to it. It was Stiles’ favorite fill-up station to use because the prices were typically cheaper when compared to the other big named gas stations in town. And while he wasn’t really required to pay for his own gas—his father did so for him—Stiles didn’t want to waste his father’s hard earned cash.

Stiles walked into the convenience store so that he could pay for his pump. There was an elderly woman in the front of the line, who was paying for her items and striking up a conversation with the cute cashier boy that looked entirely bored out of his mind. After the woman finished paying, she left, and Stiles moved up to the front of the cashier counter.

He dug into the back packet of his jeans for his wallet, but the tightness of his pants brought him a little trouble with successfully retrieving his cash. While the cashier continued to stand there, looking just as unmoved as he had beforehand, he watched Stiles shuffle around in a battle with his own pants. Stiles looked up and tried to give a small smile to ease the awkwardness, but then something caught his attention.

Behind from where the cashier was standing, there was a small corkboard mounted on the wall. The corkboard was littered with tons of business cards, advertisements, “lost pet” flyers, and a calendar that hadn’t been updated in about two months. However, what actually caught Stiles’ attention were the two “missing persons” flyers that were front and center on the board.

They were missing person flyers for Erica and Boyd.

Erica and Boyd? Missing? Stiles couldn’t manage to wrap his head around it. He had gone back to the Argents’ house after the Kanima and Gerard had been finished off, and Chris had proved that Erica and Boyd had been safely released from capture. A dull ache struck Stiles’ gut as the realization that something else may have happened to Erica and Boyd washed over his body.

“I—I just remembered that I don’t have enough money to pay. I’ll come back later. Sorry!” Stiles quickly explained, stuffing his wallet back into the pocket of his jeans as he raced out the door.

Stiles got back into his jeep, hurriedly. He switched on the engine, ignoring the gas indicator light, and pulled out of the convenience store parking lot. Instead of heading home, Stiles took the back road that led off to the outskirts of Beacon Hills—since that was where the Beacon Hills Preserve was located.

He figured that Derek would want to know about Erica and Boyd’s disappearance, if he wasn’t already clued in. After all, he was their alpha and they were his betas. He didn’t even know if Derek would be home, but it was worth a shot. He could always try the old abandoned subway station. Either way, Derek could and _should_ do something. In fact, maybe he already knew where Erica and Boyd were and they were perfectly fine—hiding out at the old Hale house.

Stiles drove for a good ten minutes before he reached the turnoff point to get to the old Hale residence. It was at the edge of town where no street lights shined. The road that Stiles turned onto was essentially nothing but an eerie, shadowy heap of leafless trees from the surrounding preserve. The dirt covered path was only illuminated by the headlights of Stiles’ jeep. If only the sun hadn’t been so low in the sky—blacked out by the thickness of the woodlands—navigating on the road would have come by easier.

As Stiles continued down the road, the scorched Hale house appeared in Stiles’ view. He quickly scanned the surrounding area for Derek’s car, which was parked off in the front yard— or what was _once_ a front yard. As it stood in the now, it was just a collection of wild, untamed weeds.  

Stiles pulled his jeep up alongside Derek’s car and shut off the engine. He opened his door and swung around, jumping out to plant his feet on the ground. It was a bit creepy being alone all the way out in the woods, especially when the sun was just about gone. However, to Stiles’ knowledge, all the big bad monsters were gone and out of Beacon Hills. He had nothing to really worry about, except maybe Derek.

With his eyes trained on the front entrance of the house, Stiles walked up to the door. His palms were slightly sweating as he mentally rehearsed what he was going to say, and how he was going to say it. He didn’t really know what to expect from Derek. Most likely, Derek wouldn’t answer the door and would pretend that nobody was out on the front porch knocking rapidly on the door. Or, he would answer the door, but tell Stiles to get the fuck off of his property.

As Stiles approached the front porch, he noticed a strange symbol that had been painted on the surface of the red front door. It looked fairly similar to the spiral that Stiles knew Derek had tattooed on his back, although it was slightly different. It was less of a spiral, and more triangular. It looked... _threatening_ , actually. It had been boldly sprayed onto the door with black spray paint, which was still clearly visible despite the lack of light.

Stiles dismissed the symbol as being some sort of supernatural ward of some sort. Perhaps witches actually existed and Derek was guarding what was left of his home from their magic. He didn’t know for sure, but there was an explanation lurking around somewhere. He knew that he’d eventually figure out what it was.

Just as Stiles’ hand drew up in the air to take the first knock against the door, the door flew open to reveal Derek in all of his statue-esque broody glory. He just stood there—completely still—arms crossed authoritively. Not much of an expression was painted on his face, although Stiles could see a small glimmer of ‘surprise’ in Derek’s face. Not even Derek’s stern locked jaw and thick eyebrows could hide that. Derek was obviously confused as to what Stiles was doing on his front porch.

“What are you doing here?” Derek asked inquisitively, his stern composure remained unaffected. He let his eyes and senses wander the surroundings behind where Stiles stood— as if he were making sure that nobody else was lurking around his property.

“Erica and Boyd—” Stiles started, but was quickly interrupted.

“They’re missing. I’m aware of the situation.” Derek explained

Stiles scoffed at Derek’s nonchalant attitude. “Well, don’t concern yourself _too_ _much_ there, Derek. I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.” He sarcastically bit back. “Are even you looking for them?”

Derek squinted and nodded slightly. “Yes, I am. Why do you care?”

“Because I was one of the last people that actually saw them before they disappeared. They were at the Argents’.” Stiles admitted, crossing his arms.

Derek’s eyes widened in interest at Stiles’ words. “Why were _you_ at the Argents’?” He asked, allowing himself to become more attentive to what Stiles had to say. He looked directly at Stiles, but kept occasionally looking out into the darkness of the woods as if he were on high alert. Still, Stiles didn’t understand why.

“I was kidnapped from the lacrosse game by Gerard and his goons—before the whole showdown with the kanima, by the way.” Stiles added, hesitantly. Taking a pause to swallow before continuing. “Anyways, Gerard threw me down into the basement where he had Erica and Boyd shackled up and... _electrocuted_.” Stiles’ voice lowered at the last word, as if verbally cringing. He wasn’t fond of the memory.

“What happened after that?” Derek asked.

“Eventually, they let me go….and I went home.”

“What about Erica and Boyd? You just let them stay there and get tortured?” Derek’s voice grew louder as he spoke. He was angry, and rightfully so. These were the people that had tortured him many times before, and now he was receiving news that his pack had been tortured by them as well.

Stiles looked to the ground—a feeling of shame began to weigh down on his shoulder. “I wasn’t thinking, okay? I was just glad to be alive. I was glad to be home. He could have killed me in that basement and nobody would have known. When they threw me out, I just went home and stayed silent. I didn’t want my dad to know what really happened.” He paused. “Maybe I was embarrassed about not being able to do anything about it. I don’t know.”

Derek stayed silent, letting Stiles’ words settle in-between the two of them. Stiles just looked to Derek, not really sure of what to say. He felt like Derek should be furious, but Derek looked fairly calm— almost as if he could be sympathetic.

“They were let go, though.” Stiles confirmed, still tracking Derek’s reactions. “Right after Gerard was finished off, I went back to the Argents’. Allison’s father showed me the basement and all of the equipment was gone. Erica and Boyd were gone.”

“And you honestly thought that you could trust what an Argent says?”

“The first thing I did was accuse him of lying, but then he showed me the surveillance footage from the camera in their frontyard. Erica and Boyd walked out of there, _alive_.”

“Fine. Is that all you came here for?” Derek asked.

“I want to help find them.”

Derek rolled his eyes. “Goodbye, Stiles.” He huffed, closing the door in Stiles’ face.

Stiles wanted to help, and that was…well, _whatever_. Derek had already figured out that loyalty was in Stiles’ blood. Nevertheless, he didn’t have the time to deal with Stiles while he tried to focus on finding his missing betas. Stiles would be nothing but a distraction.  

They were his betas— _his_ responsibility. Derek knew that the responsibility shouldn’t fall on Stiles, nor should it fall on anybody else. After all, Derek was the one who let them leave in the first place. He truly regretted not fighting for them to stay. He had wanted them to, but things had gotten too heavy and Derek let his frustration get the better of him.

Stiles’ tip off about the Argents did nothing special but scratch off the only lead that Derek had been trying to follow, anyways. Derek had searched the woods with the scents of his missing betas on the tip of his nose, right after he first found out that they were missing. He had followed the scent trail to a barren clearing in the woods, where he found splatters of blood and spent arrows. He had been quickly able to determine that the majority was Boyd’s blood, but Erica’s blood was also present.

He had continued to follow their scents, and eventually found himself at the Argents’ residence. He figured that they were being kept there, but to Derek’s own misfortune, Allison and her father appeared to have put the house up for sale. The house was empty, and there wasn’t a possibility that his betas were still at that location. Still, he hadn’t crossed the Argents off of his list and continued to search for ways to locate Christopher. That is, until Stiles’ information shut down Derek’s hope that the Argents still had his betas.

As Derek turned away from the front door to walk back into the innermost part of his home, another knock on the door sounded. The sheer persistence of Stiles was enough to drive anybody mad.

Derek opened the door, eyebrows creased in utter annoyance. “Go home.” He grit through his teeth.  

Stiles’ face grew tainted with displeasure. He frowned and crossed his arms. “Listen, I just want to help. I need to do this. If I had just told my dad what happened that night, he could have had like...twelve squad cars down at the Argents’. Erica and Boyd would have been rescued and taken home safely. It’s my fault that they’re missing.”

“I don’t have time to babysit you while I’m trying to find them. What you _did_ and _didn’t_ do, isn’t of my concern. Go home, and stop looking for trouble, Stiles. This is my problem.” Derek closed the front door again, this time, locking it behind himself.

Derek leaned in towards the back of the wooden door, focusing his hearing on the activity outside of the house. He wanted to know if Stiles was actually going to leave or not. To Derek’s surprise, Stiles did. He listened as Stiles’ footsteps tapped off down the front porch of the house and back to the field of crispy weeds where the jeep was parked. The sound of that old, beat up engine firing up and driving off into the distance eventually struck Derek’s ear drum.

Stiles was gone, and Derek could finally get back to what he was doing before he was so frustratingly interrupted.

_Packing boxes._

The next day, Derek was still hanging around the old Hale house. He had spent most of the morning carrying out boxes and pieces of furniture—ranging in various sizes—and packing everything up into a medium sized moving truck. The process of packing up the truck stretched on into the mid afternoon, but Derek didn’t stop. Even as the summer sun took its highest place in the sky, cruelly blasting down heat onto Derek and his property, Derek continued on.

Just as Derek stepped out of the house with the last box that he needed to place into the moving truck, Stiles drove up and parked. Derek could only close his eyes and huff out an audible breath of aggravation as he placed the box into the back of the truck and pulled down the metal door to a solid, clean shut. He was already mentally anticipating a swarm of questions and opinions from Stiles, despite not wanting to actually hear them.

Reluctant to speak with Stiles, Derek started back towards the entrance of the house—pretending as he hadn’t just seen Stiles park his massive blue jeep in front of him. Stiles wasn’t discouraged, though. He just hopped out of the jeep, clutching a handful of white papers, and followed Derek up to the porch of the house.

“You’re packing? What, are you leaving?” Stiles eyed the moving truck as he passed by it, trailing after Derek.

“What do you want now, Stiles?” Derek asked, having reached a spot underneath the porch roof where the sun could no longer beat down on his back.

“I did a little research. That symbol on your front door—that triskelion.” Stiles gestured over to the bleak red door with the terrible black symbol painted onto it. “The sharp edges and triangular angles suggest it’s a threat of some sort. Are you being threatened? Is that why you’re packing up? You’re running?”

“I’m not running.”

“Really? So, there’s no urgency in clearing out of this place, huh? You just decided to pack up everything you own and load it all into a truck during the hottest day we’ve had this year?” Stiles scoffed. “You just woke up today and decided to let yourself get soaked in sweat for fun.”

Derek wanted to toss Stiles back to his jeep and tell him to go back home, but he had a feeling that even if he did that, Stiles would come wandering back with more questions. The problem was that Derek didn’t have time to play twenty questions with anybody, let alone Stiles. There were dangers lurking around the corner—dangers that Stiles was entirely oblivious to—yet he wanted to get involved. Derek couldn’t say that Stiles’ persistence wasn’t a least a tiny bit interesting, because it was. He hadn’t met many humans that acted in such a way, but Stiles was clearly different.

“You don’t want to help because you actually care, it’s because you feel guilty. It’s to better your own conscience.” Derek spat, watching Stiles’ face fall flat.

“It is my fault, but at least I’m trying to do something to fix it.” Stiles argued back, stepping closer to Derek’s frame. “Don’t stand there and act like you’re so noble. You’re not trying to find them because you give a shit what happens to them. You’re trying to find them because you feel guilty that you didn’t have the _strength_ behind your alpha title to keep your betas safe. It’s to better your conscience, because if you save them, then it means that _you_ didn’t completely fuck up!”

Derek just looked away towards the floorboards of the porch he was standing on, refusing to look at Stiles. He was at a loss of words. He feared that perhaps Stiles was right. Maybe he really was just looking for Erica and Boyd because he felt guilty and wanted to prove himself as an alpha. He _did_ feel guilty, there was no denying that. If he had never bitten the two of them, they’d be safe. However, Derek honestly just wanted to bring them back home. It wasn’t that he needed to prove to himself that he was a good alpha, it was that he wanted them safe.

“You still can’t help. You’re a liability.” Derek said.

Stiles held up the papers in his hands. “I did even more research than I initially anticipated.” He paused, pulling the papers down to flip through them. “These are _about_ one-hundred and fifty police reports; most of which are unfollowed or uninvestigated reports that may or may not be supernaturally related. Any of which might be a clue as to who might have taken Erica and Boyd.”

“You got these... _how_?” Derek asked.

“You’re _too_ pretty to ask such stupid questions.” Stiles deadpanned. “My friend, Danny, taught me how to hack into my father’s personal ‘work-related’ computer.”

Derek was at a crossroads. He didn’t want, nor did he need Stiles’ help. However, those police reports could in fact possess possible tip-offs as to where Erica and Boyd were. Those police reports could be the key to bringing Erica and Boyd home.

“It is a threat.” Derek forced out, looking away from Stiles. “It’s a threat from a rival pack...of _alphas_.”

Stiles looked back at the front door, taking in the sight of the threatening symbol once more. “A pack of alphas? A whole pack consisting of _only_ alpha werewolves? Do you think they took Erica and Boyd?”

“Yes.” Derek mumbled out.

“Why?”

“Do you think that I know the answer to that question, Stiles?” Derek snipped, looking to face Stiles.

Stiles exhaled. “I don’t know! I’d expect that you should know something by now, considering you knew that _that_ symbol on your front door meant to clear out and lay low.”

“These alphas are among some of the most ruthless, savage, and powerful. That symbol is theirs, and I know what it means. They’re announcing their arrival to the resident alpha of this town.” Derek explained. “They took two of my own...to make me weaker and wary...I _don’t_ know, but I need to focus on finding them. I don’t need you in my way.”

“That’s good, because I won’t be in your way. Plus, you need all the help you can get. Do you think that you and your little scent tracker nose is enough manpower to find them quickly enough?” Stiles asked, pointing to Derek’s nose. “You can gripe and groan all you want about me not helping, but I’m not gonna run home discouraged with my tail between my legs.”

Stiles shrugged, stepping off of the wooden porch and onto the crumbly dirt yard. Derek watched solemnly from afar, mentally torn as to what to do and say, as he watched Stiles walk back towards his jeep to leave. It could be easier to find both Erica and Boyd with some more help. Though, it was _Stiles’_ help, and would that kind of help even be valuable?

“Fine.” Derek called out, stopping Stiles dead in the process of jumping into his jeep to leave. “You can help, but this isn’t an open invitation. Keep this to yourself and don’t open your mouth to Scott. There will be nobody else besides you and anybody else that I find fit.”

Stiles scoffed. “Why not Scott?”

“This pack of alphas is planning something. I can feel it.” Derek paused. “I want you to let Scott get away with a decent summer before all of this turns back to shit. He wanted to be a normal teenager, so let him be one.” He stated solidly.

Stiles looked up and down Derek’s body, carefully eyeing his posture and facial expression. Was this the real Derek Hale? Since when did Derek care about somebody else having nice things? Since when did Derek become so giving, especially since what happened back when Gerard was being stopped.

“You want Scott to have a nice summer, is that what you’re saying? Even after what he did to you to take down Gerard?”

Derek looked to the ground as if suddenly struck with an emotion that he didn’t know how to physically display. Stiles stood silently, waiting for a vocal response, but Derek came back with a strong nod.

“Okay.” Stiles said, shaking his head in agreement. He was just about to get fully into his jeep and drive off when he looked over to the moving truck beside him and remembered. “Oh, wait. If I’m going to work with you to find Erica and Boyd, we’re obviously not going to be operating out of this place. Where’s your new ‘Bat-Cave?”

Derek mentally cringed over the comedic flare that constantly radiated from whatever Stiles said. He forced his hand into the pocket of his tight black jeans and pulled out a white napkin—one that he had used to wipe his forehead free of sweat as he packed away boxes under the heat of the sun. It was gross, but it was all that he had to write on.

He turned his back to Stiles and placed the napkin up against the side of the Hale house so that he could write on the surface of it without tearing through the paper. From his back pocket, Derek pulled out a pen and quickly wrote down the address of his new residence, including which floor his new apartment unit was located on.

With Stiles waiting patiently at the door of his own jeep, Derek briskly jogged over to where Stiles stood and handed him the napkin with his new address.

“I’m not the new local bar, so don’t just show up whenever you want.”

“Does that mean you’ll have alcohol to sip on, cause—”  

Derek ripped the napkin out of Stiles’ hand with a vicious look of discontent on his face. This was exactly why Derek was reluctant to add Stiles to his search party. If he couldn’t take things seriously, then he wasn’t of any use.

“Okay, fine. I’ll listen.” Stiles said, holding out his hand for Derek to give him back the napkin. Derek eyed him judgingly before slowly handing him back the napkin.

“You’ll come over when I say.” Derek explained. “When you leave to come over, don’t tell anybody where you’re really going. _Lie_. Do you understand?”

Stiles nodded in compliance, and hopped into the jeep. He started the engine and pulled off of Derek’s property, leaving Derek to brood and ponder over whether or not he made a wise choice in trusting Stiles.

 


	2. First Day on the Job

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles' first day working alongside Derek and the rest of his pack is not what he suspected. Derek's a sneaky asshole and Stiles knew that he should have seen it coming.

When the next day rolled around, Stiles woke up more than unimpressed to find that he had no new text messages on his phone. The desire to get out into the town and search for Erica and Boyd was burning a pit in his stomach. It ached and stung, and despite the fact that Derek essentially promised that Stiles could help find the two betas, Stiles wasn’t completely sold on Derek’s “promise”.

If anything, Derek was like a sleazy car salesman. He sold people junker cars with lots of added polish on top to pass the cars off as new, leaving the innocent owners to face repercussions after purchase. A piece of Stiles wanted to text Derek, but it felt weird. The two of them weren’t on “casual text message exchange” levels.”

Stiles had woken up bright and early at eight o’clock that morning. Hours eventually passed—still with no word from Derek. Scott had already made his way over to Beacon Hills High for his summer classes, and Stiles’ father had gone to work for the day. Stiles was all alone with nothing to do, but he didn’t want to be that guy who waited by their phone all day for somebody to text or call.

Around lunch-time, a summer storm had begun to pour down over Beacon Hills. Stiles had decided to stay in and watch movies to kill time, rather than drive around and get soaked in the sappy, warm summer rain. Half way into the movie that he pulled up on his laptop, Stiles’ phone vibrated with an alert notifying him that he had received a new text message. Stiles’ focus instantly flew over to his phone. He picked it up, and to his pleasure, there was a new message from Derek.

It read: “Get over here, now.”

Stiles threw on a pair of beat up sneakers and an old jacket to keep himself dry from the rain. Before heading out of his house, he made sure to grab the old, sweaty napkin that had Derek’s new address written on it. As Stiles made his way down his staircase, he plugged the address into the GPS function on his phone, only to find that Derek’s new house wasn’t even in Beacon Hills. The new address was located about twenty minutes away in the city right outside of Beacon Hills.

Stiles made quick work of getting into his jeep and heading off towards the city. He paid attention to the GPS as it gave him directions in that almost nauseating robotic voice that drove Stiles crazy. Stiles never really did go out to the city, mostly because he had pretty much everything he needed in Beacon Hills. The only thing the city had was more traffic, more clutter, and an overall feeling of gloom that always seemed to slick over it.

As Stiles neared the city, the storm began to hit heavier. The rain pelted against the asphalt of the highway so harshly that clouds of mist began to loom above the road—making visibility more of a problem. Eventually, Stiles’ GPS directed him to take an exit into the inner city, and the heinous mist clouds were no more of a problem. Instead, it was almost relaxing to see the reflections of the street lights bounce off of the rain soaked roads.

Stiles’ GPS lead him through the city to where Derek’s apartment was. As the GPS lead him on, Stiles realized that he was being taken out into the more industrial area of the city. There weren’t many homes scattered around. It wasn’t a suburban neighborhood like what was found back in Beacon Hills, but instead, there were a lot of rusty, abandoned looking buildings, and terribly paved roads.

A little while later, Stiles eventually pulled into a fairly grungy looking parking lot that was in the front of a towering building. The building was anything but appealing. In fact, it was a grim building composed entirely of old, black bricks. The windows on each floor of the building looked foggy—not because they were actually fogged up, but because a film of filth appeared to have covered the outside of the glass. Dim mustard lights faintly appeared in some of the fogged windows, but others were completely blacked out.

Stiles parked his jeep in an empty parking space. He pulled out the pages upon pages of police reports from where they were stored in the jeep’s glove compartment, stashed them under his coat, and then hurriedly rushed into the lobby of the building—covering his head to escape the rain.

The lobby wasn’t really lobby—not one like you’d find in a nice city hotel or a professional business building. Really, it was just a drab square room where the walls were papered with an ugly, dark grey paisley print. At the back of the room was an elevator that didn’t even look like it’d make it to the first floor of the building, let alone the top where Derek’s apartment was.

Hesitantly, Stiles pressed the button on the wall to call for the elevator. He waited a minute until a faint ‘ding’ sounded and the elevator doors slid open with a terrible grind. He stepped into the enclosed space with a whispered prayer on his lips. He hoped for a safe and pleasant ride up to the top with no malfunctions and definitely no free-falls.

On the napkin that Derek had given him, there was no specific floor number listed, but instead the words, “top floor”. Stiles pressed the button for the seventeenth floor because that was the highest number available. The napkin also didn’t happen to have any sort of apartment number listed, so Stiles thought that perhaps Derek’s entire apartment was the entirety of the seventeenth floor—like a cool renovated loft or something. But just from seeing the parking lot, exterior of the building, and the lobby…Stiles had very low expectations.

When the elevator finally stopped at the top floor, the elevator doors opened with the same gruesome grind as before. Stiles didn’t step out right away, despite desperately wanted to get out of the elevator. The hallway ahead of him was dark and daunting. It looked more like a cave than it did an actual hallway. But Stiles eventually got a hold of his nerves and stepped out.

It was a large rectangular room with cement walls and cement floors. In the middle of the room was a large pit of what looked to be utter darkness. There were guardrails that stretched around the entirety of the pit, leaving tight corridor-like walkways around so that people could get from one side of the room to the other. Stiles dared to peer over the guardrail and found that it wasn’t just a pit of utter darkness. He could see dim, flickering lights trailing down in the pit. The pit allowed Stiles to see down to the floors below, with the small lights stretching far down. It was basically a mine shaft within a building.

Stiles looked around for an apartment door, but there wasn’t one. However, on the far side of the shaft-like room, there was a large, horizontal door that looked as if it could be slid over to reveal a room. Stiles walked down one of the walkways around the pit, up to the large door. He pulled Derek’s napkin from his pocket and looked at it once more before deciding to just knock and find out for himself if he was in the right place or not.

Stiles got out two good knocks before the large metal door slid open to reveal Derek and his new loft. Of course, Derek looked just as unmoved as ever. Almost as if the haunting broodiness of his new residence didn’t creep him out. And it probably didn’t. After all, he had lived in the charred remains of his old childhood home and the remnants of an abandoned subway train.

“Happy Housewarming—” Stiles said sarcastically, stopping mid-congratulations when Derek’s powerful hand gripped his shoulder and pulled him into the loft.

Derek slid the metal door closed while Stiles took in the sight of Derek’s place.

It wasn’t nice, but it was a whole lot nicer than the places Derek had lived. At least nothing was charred and the ceiling wasn’t a gust of wind away from tumbling down. In fact, most of the ceiling was a skylight—given, the glass was just as foggy as the other windows on the outside of the building that Stiles had seen coming in. The only piece of glass in main area of the loft that wasn’t grossly fogged up was the large arch-shaped window on the back wall.

The floors of the loft were cement, and the walls were all exposed brick. In various places of the loft, there were wooden columns with not-so-bright sconces mounted on them. They seemed to add just a little warmth to all the cold, masculinity that the place exuded. Most of the furniture looked tattered and old—possibly previously owned—all except for the bed that was over in the far right corner of the loft, away from the small living space. As well as what little furniture Derek brought with him from the Hale house.

The space was pretty big. Stiles didn’t know if the entire loft stretched around the entire floor, but he was only standing in the main living space that served as a living room and bedroom. The kitchen, bathrooms, and any other places within Derek’s space where hidden behind closed metal doors.

“So, you texted.” Stiles paused, turning around to face Derek. “Grand total of four words. Congratulations. I’m glad that I’m blessed enough to witness such an _expression_ of words from you.”

Derek breezed past Stiles, not even bothering to play into his sarcastic nature. “The storm has given us a better opportunity to track scents. If not Erica and Boyd, maybe the alphas that took them.”

“The storm actually helps track scents?” Stiles said, turning to track Derek’s movement around the loft. “I would have thought it would wash away all the evidence.”

“Physical evidence, yes. Scents? It depends. A moderate amount of rainfall will act as an amplifier for scent particles that have been left behind. Excessive rainfall would dilute scents too much for them to be of any use.”

Derek walked around to the backside of a metal desk that was placed in front of the large arch window. He opened one of the drawers and pulled out three large pieces of laminated paper that were all rolled up and bound with a rubber band. He set the three rolls atop the desk and looked to Stiles, as if telling him to come over...so he listened.

“So, you’re sniffing and I’m following behind, or what? Scent trails are nice, but I’m not a werewolf.” Stiles explained, walking up to the frontside of Derek’s desk.

Derek looked genuinely unsurprised, as if he knew that Stiles was going to say just that. He almost opened his mouth to reply, but then a voice cracked from atop the spiral staircase that was in the left backhand corner of the loft. It caught Stiles’ immediately attention.

“You’re not….a creature of the night. Nevertheless, you would make quite a powerful one, Stiles.” The voice continued on, radiating a cocky elegance—as if _he_ thought of himself as the most intelligent man on the planet. Right then and there, Stiles knew who the voice belonged to before the man even finished getting down the staircase.

It was Peter Hale—Derek’s psychotic uncle. He was supposed to be dead, but somehow managed to come back from the dead. Stiles had seen him, for a brief second, back at the empty warehouse where the kanima and Gerard were taken down. However, he had been unable to question Derek as to how Peter was breathing again.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Stiles asked, slightly alarmed. He looked back to Derek. “What the _hell_ is he doing here? Don’t tell me that you actually trust him.”

“I don’t.” Derek spoke strongly.

“Then why is he here?”

“He’s experienced with tracking scents, as _all_ werewolves are.” Derek glared at Stiles, as if what he said was an insult directed straight towards him….because it was.

Peter stepped off of the staircase and began to curiously study Stiles, walking around him slowly. It was creepy, but Stiles wasn’t scared. If anything, he was annoyed by the fact that Peter was still breathing. It had only been a few months since Peter had murdered all of those people, tried to turn his best friend into a vicious killer, and bit Lydia.

“Please tell me that you’re not serious about lugging this _liability_ around while we try to find your betas.” Peter said, looking over to where Derek was fiddling around with the pieces of laminated paper on his desk.

Derek removed the rubber bands that kept the three scroll-like papers bound, and unrolled them. Without even bothering to play into Peter’s complaints, Derek began to explain the game-plan.

“We’re going to head back to Beacon Hills and search every inch of that place until we find Erica and Boyd.” Derek started, holding up two pieces of papers while keeping the third piece set aside. “These are maps, complete with markers that indicate where abandoned areas and areas with low population traffic are located. There is a higher chance we’ll find Erica and Boyd in these places.”

Stiles stayed quiet as he listened to Derek’s instructions. It was odd seeing Derek so concerned and so focused. While Derek’s exterior remained the same—tall, dark, rugged, insanely muscular—Stiles could tell that Erica and Boyd’s disappearances were taking a serious toll on Derek from the inside. It was unlike anything Stiles had ever really witnessed regarding Derek’s threshold for genuine sympathy, but it made Derek seem more human. It was like Derek wasn’t really as cold and as harsh as he constantly tried to make himself out to be.

“Shouldn’t we split up to cover more ground?” Stiles suggested, and Derek just continued talking.

“We _will_ split up. You are to start at the first marker on your map, search the area of that marker thoroughly, and then report back to _me_ with any information as to whether or not Erica and Boyd might be close to your location.”

“So, are we all going out as individuals, or are we doing teams? You know, Peter Frankenwolf with himself, and us two together.” Stiles said, directing his words to Derek.

Stiles looked around to both Derek and Peter with an almost enthusiastic expression on his face, but that faded away when Stiles realized that the two of them seemed as if they knew something that he didn’t. When Stiles went to ask again, the unruly sound of the loft door being heaved open caught his attention.

Stiles swung around to see Isaac Lahey—Derek’s only non-missing beta—standing in the doorway of the loft. He strode in swiftly, shutting the loft door closed again.

“You’re late.” Derek said, coldly. And as Isaac walked up to the trio, Derek threw him one of the three maps. Isaac caught it and opened it up.

“East Beacon Hills? There’s nothing abandoned there. It’s home to the rich.”

“Which is exactly why you and your partner will look there. It’s a gated community with low traffic from the town’s population.” Derek explained, stepping around and out from behind his metal desk.

Under the impression that he was paired off with Isaac, Stiles felt the urge to gripe about being paired with somebody that somehow managed to get underneath his skin despite being quiet most of the time. Isaac wasn’t anything close to an acquaintance to Stiles. There was something about Isaac’s smug little face that kind of made Stiles want to pull out his own hair. Maybe what irritated Stiles the most was Isaac’s abnormally shaped jaw line. Or maybe it was the fact that Isaac had been trying to buddy himself closer to Scott...

“Stiles.” Derek said, throwing him another one of the maps.

Stiles unrolled the map, looking upon the layout of Beacon Hills. He knew where just about everything in the town was located, so there was almost no need for Derek’s map, except for the markers. However, Stiles quickly took notice to the fact that his map was completely blank. It was just a regular map of the town with no markers or indicators as to where to look.

“ _Yeahhh_ , my map is blank.” Stiles said.

“Yes.” Derek acknowledged.

“Well, how the hell am I supposed to search around the town when you haven’t marked anything on this one?”

“You’re not going to search around the town.” Derek explained. “You’re going to stay here and look through those police reports that you showed me yesterday. As you read through them, if and when a report lists an address, you will mark down that location on your map.”

Stiles wanted to bark out in frustration, but he managed to keep his cool. He was almost impressed at how deceptive Derek was—leading him on to believe that he’d get to go out and find Derek’s missing betas. Nevertheless, Derek was clearly the equivalent of a _certain_ asshole chemistry teacher that loved throwing out harsh pop quizzes and keeping _certain_ students back after class as punishment for no crime whatsoever.

As Derek and the other two werewolves in the room began to head out of the loft, Stiles called out, making Derek stop in his tracks.

“What makes you think that I want to stay here in this creepy loft while you go out and try to find Erica and Boyd?” Stiles asked strongly. “Whatever part of your little werewolf brain that made you think I’d actually say yes to this must have malfunctioned.”

It was just the two of them left in the loft since Peter and Isaac had already cleared out. Derek sighed. “You were the one that said that you wanted to help. ‘Helping’ does not mean running around out there where I have to monitor your every step. Stay in here and help in the way that you can.”

And with that, Derek walked out of the loft and shut the door behind him, leaving Stiles alone in the dimness of the drab loft.

Stiles reluctantly lugged himself over to getting to work. Those police reports wouldn’t look through themselves. And it didn’t really matter that he had to stay behind at Derek’s new loft, even if he’d rather be out in the open air, as opposed to locked away in a creepy dungeon. He was still contributing something to the search party for Erica and Boyd, and that’s all that mattered.

While the storm continued to cook up outside, Stiles took his pile of police reports and sat down upon a grungy looking turquoise couch that was placed in the living room area of Derek’s loft. The living room area was small, yet somewhat cozy. With a couch, a coffee table, a couple chairs, and a couple standing lamps. It was a decent set up.

On Stiles’ left, he set down the blank map that he needed to fill in. On Stiles’ lap, he placed the police reports. One-by-one he began to look through the reports. He started off with the first report—something about a small, unattended roadside fire on the shoulder of a highway—and read through it until he got down to the location of the highway. Stiles was pretty much certain that a roadside fire had absolutely nothing to do with a pack of alpha werewolves, but he didn’t feel like listening to Derek whine about not marking all the addresses down.

When he went to mark down the location of the incident, he realized that he didn’t have anything to write with. He stood up and walked up to the desk that Derek had stood behind beforehand, and then began to look through the drawers. There were a couple paperclips and some crumpled up pieces of paper, but no writing utensils.

Stiles was sure that there was something to write with somewhere in Derek’s loft, and it was in that moment that his mind sparked the potentially dangerous idea of snooping around Derek’s place. He knew it was probably a bad idea, and if Derek ever found out, Stiles would probably be killed right on the spot. It was an invasion of privacy that Stiles was unsure if he’d get away with, considering Derek was a werewolf with a powerful sense of smell.

Stiles figured that he probably shouldn’t snoop, but the idea of seeing what Derek kept behind closed doors was too captivating. If Derek came home and questioned as to why Stiles’ scent trail was all over the loft, he’d just say that it was because he was looking around for a bathroom. There wasn’t really any harm in looking around, anyways. Besides, Derek had broken into Stiles’ house back when he was still a fugitive from the Beacon Hills police department. Returning the favor was the only fair thing to do.

The first room that Stiles wandered off into was the first door right off of the main loft area. It was a kitchen. There wasn’t anything special about it. It had a standard refrigerator, oven, microwave, and dishwasher. There was a shelf placed above the oven with books lined across it. None of them were labeled, but they all look torn and half charred. They were relics from the old Hale house.

Stiles pulled one of the books off of the shelf and began to carefully flip through some of the pages. It was a cookbook, with extra bits of handwritten notes sketched throughout the chapters. The extra notes were tips and tricks in regards to the recipes that they were jotted down next to.

It was an interesting thought to think that perhaps Derek was a chef in secret. There wasn’t anything wrong with a man that knew his way around a kitchen. In fact, it was kind of _attractive_. The writing in the cookbook, however, didn’t seem to match the handwriting on the napkin Derek that had previously given Stiles. Obviously, the handwritten add-ins didn’t belong to Derek, but perhaps to somebody else in Derek’s family.

The thought that the writing could belong to somebody Derek loved, like his mother or father, made Stiles feel slightly ashamed of infringing on something so personal. He imagined how he’d feel if somebody went through things that belonged to his mother, and he imagined he’d be angry. He put the book back onto the shelf, making sure that it wouldn’t look out of place if Derek were to casually glance at it while in his kitchen.

Stiles continued on his journey through Derek’s new bachelor pad, although he kept from meddling around with things that he thought Derek probably wouldn’t approve of him looking through. Yet, Derek appeared to never approve of anything, so Stiles was at a slight disadvantage in regards to determining which places were “off-limits” and which places were “extremely off-limits”.

Beyond the center of the loft—the area with the living room, Derek’s bed, and that large arch window that overlooked the city—there was guest bedroom. From what Stiles could see, it was the one that was clearly filled by what looked to be Isaac’s minimal amount of belongings.

There were also a couple bathrooms, some large storage closets, a small office space with floor-to-wall bookshelves, and roof access through the use of the spiral staircase. Although the loft was spacious and occupied most of the building’s top floor, most of the space was made up of menacing corridors that lead from one room to another.

Lucky for Stiles, he didn’t have to spend too much time in Derek’s dismal maze of lengthy hallways because he was able to find a red permanent marker in the office space that Derek hadn’t fully unpacked in yet. He could finally sit down and get started on the work that he should have begun a long time ago.

It was around four o’clock in the late afternoon when Derek and Isaac returned back to the loft. Derek slid open the front door of the loft, only to find Stiles fast asleep on the couch with his legs kicked up onto the coffee table, and his arms thrown back behind his head.

Stiles looked more like he had just finished running a fifteen mile marathon as opposed to reading through police reports. His hair—slightly longer than his usual buzzcut—looked messy and unbrushed. The sleeves of his flannel were rolled up to his elbows, and his shoes had been tossed aside on the concrete floor.

There were police report papers scattered around the surrounding floor, couch, and coffee table. As well as there were about five empty soda cans stacked atop each other on the coffee table, as if Stiles had gotten bored and tried to build a pillar.

“What the _HELL_ is this?” Derek yelled, startling Stiles out of his nap.

Stiles stood up and rubbed his eyes, looking around to see who had entered the loft. At first he was scared—unsure of who had barged in—but when he saw that it was only Derek and Isaac, he immediately calmed.

“Where’s Satan?” Stiles asked, referring to the lack of presence from Derek’s uncle.

Derek didn’t answer, but instead repeated the question that he had already asked once before. “What the hell is this?” He asked again, still in an angry tone, gesturing to the mess Stiles had made of his living space. Isaac took that as his cue to head back to his room to avoid whatever storm between the two was going to possibly transpire.  

Stiles scratched at the back of his neck, sitting back down on the couch. He looked at the coffee table and at the floor, where all of his papers were scattered. It didn’t look _that_ messy, so he didn’t understand what Derek’s deal was.

“It’s just all the work you had _me_ do while you were out having all the fun.” Stiles said.

“This isn’t a frat house, Stiles. Do you not know how to pick up after yourself?” Derek asked, stepping into the living area to stand across from Stiles.

Stiles stood up and began dismantling his _‘Leaning Tower of Root Beer’_. “I was going to clean it up. Don’t get your fucking boxers in a twist, Derek. _Jeez_.” He huffed. “Did you get any leads?”

Derek stayed quiet for a minute, analyzing Stiles as he began to gather up all of the police report papers that were on the floor. It was weird to have a somewhat….less strained conversation with Stiles. Derek was surprised that Stiles hadn’t come back at him with a slightly more hostile retort.

“We couldn’t track any scents from Erica and Boyd. No scents from the alphas either.” Derek said, much calmer this time.

Stiles began to walk around the coffee table, kneeling down and picking up each individual piece of paper that he had carelessly tossed aside hours ago during his work. “I thought you said the storm would help you track scents.” Stiles continued on, walking around Derek as if he were a statue.

“We suspect the alphas may have used a form of wolfsbane known to shatter scent patterns.” Derek stated. “ _Aconitum Lycoctonum_ , or what we call it, _‘Block-bane’_.”

Stiles snorted a laugh. He walked in front of where Derek was standing, mindlessly not acknowledging him, and knelt down to the ground to pick up the remaining papers. “ _Block-bane_.” He chuckled. “I admit, that’s pretty catchy. I can imagine typing that nickname into some mega computer database for lycan related things.”

Derek crossed his arms, staring down at the back of Stiles’ head while Stiles scoped the papers into the stack he held in his hands.

Stiles looked up to stare at Derek, but instead got an eyeful of Derek’s jeans-clad crotch and a bit of Derek looking down at him, judgmentally. He felt a pang of embarrassment flush through his system. He couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away from Derek’s legs...and his crotch. He was frozen—knelt down to the concrete ground, with a stack of papers in his hands and his eyes where they really, _really_ shouldn’t be.  

Derek cleared his throat, snapping Stiles out of his gaze. Stiles stood up, patting the edges of the papers together to form a neat stack. The two stared at each other for a moment before Stiles turned away and sparked up a continuation to the conversation that they were having before Derek’s body so _rudely_ interrupted.

“I—uh, finished getting through all the police reports. All one-hundred and seventy-four of them.” Stiles set the stack of papers onto the coffee table, and picked up the map that he had marked up with red X’s. “I filled out the map with all the addresses from the reports. Can’t say it’ll be easy searching each location, though. It could take weeks...months even.”

“Whatever it takes.” Derek confirmed.

Stiles nodded in response at grabbed his sneakers from the ground, only to sit back down on the couch and begin to shove them back onto his feet.

“Well, I should probably get back home. It’s getting late and I don’t want to hit rush-hour traffic getting back into town.” Stiles said, shuffling upward to stand towards Derek.

A brief awkward silence filled the air around the two as they both tried to figure out how to end their conversation. They had never actually said a real goodbye to each other and saying one at that moment felt weird. It was mostly because it was something that they never had to do. They weren’t exactly close. Not friends, but not exactly enemies...even after everything Derek had done. All of their conversations ended abruptly, with loud huffs of frustration, or with the two of them walking off silently in opposite directions. Sometimes all three.

“Okay, so...till next time, I guess.” Stiles said, picking up his empty soda cans. “I’ll be available.” He gave Derek a slight nod.

Stiles left the loft and shut the door tightly behind himself. He steered towards the old terror of an elevator that he most definitely did not want to step into for the second time in one day. It were times like that, which made Stiles wish that he could just teleport or fly.


	3. Never Underestimate the Power of a Skillfully Crafted Accessory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If there was one thing that Stiles was good at, it was being obnoxiously sarcastic. But if there was another thing that Stiles was good at, it would be pulling tricks out of his sleeves to get what he wanted.

The next several days amounted to pretty much the same work.

In the early afternoon of each day, Stiles would receive a text message from Derek, urging him to head over to the loft. While Stiles stayed in the loft and marked up a brand new map with new addresses from the latest police reports he had managed to steal, Derek and the other two werewolves would head out into town to check out the addresses on the first map that Stiles had created.

On the weekends, Stiles would stay at home instead of heading off into the city to work with Derek and the others, because those were the days that Scott was off from his summer school classes. Just in case Scott wanted to hang out or something—which he typically did—Stiles made sure that he’d be available so that Scott would stay in the dark.

There wasn’t any time to risk making up lies to tell Scott as to why he couldn’t hang out. It was the summer, and to Scott’s knowledge, Stiles was completely free of all responsibility. It was true...as far as what Scott actually knew. Stiles had no part-time job and hadn’t bothered enrolling in summer school classes to study for the PSATs. Stiles figured that since there wasn’t any room to wedge a lie in-between him and his best friend, he would keep his weekends open to provide an alibi.

Stiles’ father also stayed completely oblivious to Stiles’ daily afternoon adventures, as well. As Beacon Hills’ leading sheriff in charge, he was always busy and always working late hours over at the station. He would leave early in the morning, and by the time he came home, Stiles had already returned from working over on Derek’s couch. For all Sheriff Stilinski knew, his son spent all of his time lounging around the house, sleeping, and eating.

It was a Sunday—the second one since Stiles had begun working alongside Derek to find the missing betas.

The day started off no different than any of the other days that Stiles had faced since the beginning of his summer break. To begin with, it was around noon when Stiles had finally decided it would be best to slop himself out of his bed and grace the world with his presence. The first thing he did was grab his cell phone off of his bedside night table to check for new messages. Normally, he didn’t check his phone, but it had become somewhat of a habit ever since he had begun searching for Erica and Body.  

Upon turning on his phone, Stiles found that there were a couple new text messages waiting to be read. And despite the fact that it was the weekend and Derek had already been clued into Stiles’ plan to keep his weekends free for the chance to continue keeping Scott in the dark, Stiles’ mind still expected the new messages to be from Derek. Yet, they weren’t.

One of the messages was from Stiles’ father, telling him to take a couple packages of chicken out of the freezer to thaw throughout the day. The only other message was from Scott, who wanted to know if Stiles was up for hanging out and playing some video games.

Stiles replied to Scott with a simple, “yes”, and then went to go brush his teeth and take the chicken out of the freezer.

Stiles didn’t even bother changing out of his pajamas. It wasn’t like Scott would actually care. They two of them had seen each other in their plain boxers. Plus, it wasn’t like they were going to go out anything in the world. As far as Stiles was concerned, both he and Scott were to be locked away in the sound safety of Stiles’ home, away from the rest of the world.

About thirty minutes after replying to Scott’s initial text message, loud knocks on Stiles’ front door were sounding off and Stiles hurriedly rushed downstairs to greet Scott, as well as the bags of chips and packs of soda that Scott had brought along with him.

“Game-time!” Stiles said, opening the front door. Scott walked past him with a smile.

The two set up shop in Stiles’ bedroom because that was where Stiles had all of his video game consoles tucked away for use. They started off with a couple of their favorites—some first-person shooters that never seemed to lose their fun. Stiles was better at them, but Scott was fair competition. Stiles didn’t feel bad, though, because Scott would probably have better aim in real life with his super werewolf senses. At least in the video game world, Stiles could take out an enemy from a hundred feet away.

After about an hour or so of some hardcore playing, and having ravaged through all of the chips that Scott had brought with him, Stiles suggested that they’d play a different game. He wanted to play something with a little less shooting and a lot more story-line. He had tons of video games that he had beaten, but it was never a bad idea to replay the story-mode of a good game. Scott was up for the idea, and they quickly found themselves entranced within another hour of game play.

The games were fun, but all throughout the sick button smashing, Stiles couldn’t help but feel like he should have been over at the loft to help. Even though he had already explained to Derek about keeping his weekends clear, he sort of expected Derek to at least text him with some important updates. He didn’t know why, but he couldn’t shake off the feeling of some slight disappointment. Playing videogames with Scott—despite being fun and providing a break from reading through boring police reports—just seemed to take away from whatever precious time he could have used to help save Derek’s missing betas.

After about two and a half hours of their videogame marathon session, Stiles’ phone lit up with a “new message” alert. Scott didn’t notice, but Stiles sure did. He kept the fingers of his left hand working over the gaming controller—attempting to keep up—while he used his other hand to see who had sent him a message.

To Stiles’ amazement, the message was from Derek. It read:

“We may have found something.”

Stiles didn’t have an idea of how to respond. Was he supposed to text back something like, “that’s awesome” or something else along the lines of, “I’ll be right there”? He didn’t fully know.

It wasn’t that Derek’s texts were _vague_ —except, they were. It was just that Derek’s texts always seemed to lack a certain sense of what Stiles liked to call, _“Text-Messager’s Emotion”_. Like Derek in real life, the man’s text messages lacked luster. When Stiles read text messages in his head, he always read them in the sender’s voice. The only problem was that because Derek was so growly and monotone ninety-five percent of the time, Stiles didn’t know how to properly respond to them, because he couldn’t figure out if Derek was in a good or bad mood. Though, it was probably a bad one.

Stiles sent back a quick, “Need more details”, while he tried to also focus on playing the videogame that was sitting right in front of him. He tried to make his response as basic as possible. He didn’t want it to sound like he just didn’t care, but he also didn’t want it to sound like he had been waiting all day to hear from Derek. It had to be something right in the middle.

It didn’t even matter that Stiles was trying so desperately to multitask and keep his attention split between two separate things. When Derek texted back with, “we’ve found the scent of an alpha”, Stiles’ mind flew straight to his phone. The videogame became nothing more than a distant memory of the past.

“Is somebody texting you?” Scott paused the game and disrupted Stiles’ train of though. And whoa, for a moment, Stiles had actually forgotten that Scott had been sitting almost directly beside him.

Stiles hid the screen of his phone by tilting it downwards away from Scott. “Uh—what?” Stiles mumbled. “No, nobody’s texting me. I just got a new ‘crush’ alert on this app I downloaded.”

“Is it one of those hook-up apps?” Scott asked

“Yeahhh.” Stiles said, trying to figure out how to make himself _not_ look like he was hiding a really big secret. “I made an account because I was curious. Y’know, it’s actually surprising how many hot people live in Beacon Hills. You’d never know!”

Stiles lied, but getting a lie past Scott was fairly easy to do. After all, Stiles had become a professional liar years ago. Even if Scott listened to his heartbeat, he wouldn’t find upticks that’d blow his cover. His skills at lying were both a blessing and a curse...but Stiles didn’t mind.

Scott sighed. “Dude, aren’t those things dangerous? What if you pick up a creepy stalker or something? Come on, your father is a police officer. You should know that _that’s_ bad news.” Scott pointed over to the phone.

“True. Yet, somehow I don’t think a hookup app is as dangerous as a murderous were-lizard running around in the middle of the night and paralyzing people.” Stiles shrugged with a laugh. “Do you mind if you drop my character out of the game for a couple minutes. I gotta take a wiz.” He gestured towards his bedroom door, ready to leave.

“Oh, dude…” Scott grimaced. “Please tell me that you’re not going to go in there and sext whoever just messaged you on that app. I’ve already smelled enough in _this_ room.”

A look of offense washed over Stiles’ face. “My room smells _delightful_!” He said, completely disregarding Scott’s main concern. “And no, I really just gotta take a leak. I’ll be right back.”

Stiles shuffled his way out of his bedroom, leaving Scott behind with his own bewilderment. He made his way across the hallway and into the bathroom, locking the door behind himself. It wasn’t like Scott was going to just barge in…especially if Scott was honestly under the impression that sexting was a thing that would take place. But Stiles just wanted some extra protection.

Stiles was entirely uncertain as to what to text back to Derek. Derek’s text felt almost as if it were a calling card—a big ol’ bat signal in the sky for Stiles to head over to the loft. But that was what confused Stiles the most. All Stiles did at the loft was sift through stacks of papers, marking up new maps to pass off to Derek and his posse. Why would Derek be calling him to the loft? It wasn’t like he’d get to go out and search alongside everybody else.

“I’m with Scott. Did you need me to come over or something?” Stiles texted back, resting back against the bathroom sink while he waited for Derek’s reply.

Derek replied quickly with, “No. I just thought you’d want to know.”

“Why?”

“Because the addresses from your reports gave us this.”

That felt good—to know that his work wasn’t completely useless, and that it was actually helping to find both Erica and Boyd…wherever they were. It felt good. Admittedly, it did also make Stiles feel somewhat bad for the couple of times that he grumbled and swore to himself because of how his hand began to cramp after a couple hours of sketching on a map.

Stiles flushed the toilet and let the bathroom faucet run for a minute, not because he had actually used the bathroom, but because that’s what he told Scott. Stiles figured that if he was going to attempt to pass off a lie, he might as well make it the best lie he could possibly create. It was like running the toothbrush under the faucet for a couple minutes to fool parents into thinking that teeth were actually being brushed.

And Scott didn’t even bother to question as to why Stiles took a good ten minutes in the bathroom. It was probably because deep down he feared to hear that he was correct when he accused Stiles of running off to sext some random person on an app. Scott wasn’t interested in that. He was perfectly fine being left out of Stiles’ personal sex life.

The two of them, however, continued playing videogames with interruptions until Stiles’ father got home from work. It was about seven o’clock in the evening and John had plans to cook a nice chicken dinner. He offered for Scott to stick around for dinner, but Scott declined since it was getting late and his mother was probably already making something for dinner. Not only that, but he had to prepare for summer school in the morning.

Stiles’ phone was left “no new text messages” free for the remainder of the night. Nevertheless, there was an annoying itch within Stiles that made him want to ask Derek how everything was going back over on his end. He was curious to know if they had been lucky enough to get any new information out of the alpha scent they had discovered. Perhaps they had tracked the scent to another location. Perhaps they had tracked the scent to Erica and Boyd. He didn’t know, yet he wanted to.

The only problem was that Stiles didn’t want to pester Derek….at least, not at the moment. If he were to do so, then it would potentially spoil his chances at persuading Derek to let him actually go out and investigate the locations on the maps, rather than sit in the loft all day. And Stiles was most definitely cooking up a plan of persuasion to pour over Derek. All he had to do was play his cards right.

The next day, Stiles woke up fairly early—the earliest he had woken up since the beginning of his summer vacation. He had been scheming to himself for the past couple days, thinking up ideas that would push Derek into letting him tag along with Isaac and Peter when they went looking through Beacon Hills for Erica and Boyd.

He had already played out various scenarios in his head, most of which consisted of Derek whining about how Stiles would just be a “liability”, and that it was “too dangerous for a human to go up against alpha werewolves”. Well, that wasn’t a lie. It was dangerous, but Stiles had no plans to go up against them empty handed. That would be stupid, which Stiles was most definitely _not_.

He knew that persuading Derek wouldn’t be easy. Derek was stubborn almost one-hundred percent of the time, and budging the six-foot muscle slab would take not only smarts, but Stiles’ delicacy of snark. He would need to show Derek that he could fend for himself—that he wasn’t entirely dependent on the strength and fighting skills of the werewolves around him. He needed to prove that he wouldn’t be weight for Derek and the others to carry around during their midday escapades. And if none of that worked…well, Stiles already knew that he wasn’t going to take “no” as an answer. Derek would have to say yes.

Stiles took the _“constructible”_ part of his plan to his garage, where he mixed a couple brute materials together in order to make something quite useful. The other part of his plan was, of course, his charming, persuasive, and persistent attitude that would surely be used against Derek. Whether or not it would be effective remained to be seen.

Like clockwork, Stiles received a text message around one o’clock in the afternoon from Derek that urged him to head over to _Beacon Heights_ —the city in Beacon Hill’s backyard where Derek lived. It was like a daily routine—like going to school—except Stiles didn’t completely hate this one. This one was going to make a difference. It was going to save the lives of innocent people. He didn’t have any complaints.

Stiles loaded both himself and what he had constructed in his garage into his jeep and then set out for Derek’s loft. He mentally geared himself up for the resistance that he knew he would surely meet from Derek’s end. Derek would push back and fight back, but Stiles was certain that he could easily match his power. Stiles considered himself to be a master when it came to these types of things.

When Stiles arrived at Derek’s loft, he hurried up into the elevator—leaving the object of his creation in the back of his jeep. He had no intention of springing it on Derek and the others right away. A more delicate approach would have to be in order. Well, as delicate as Stiles could possibly be.

Derek slid open the loft’s door before Stiles could even attempt to knock. He must have heard Stiles’ footsteps walking down the corridor or the terrible sound of the elevator doors grinding open at the top floor. Either way, having the loft door fly open at his arrival only gave Stiles a little boost of confidence as he innocently brushed past Derek into the main living area of the loft.

Peter was sitting on the couch with his legs resting up on the coffee table and Isaac was slouched back against Derek’s desk—picking at his claws. The two of them looked bored out of their minds, but at least Derek didn’t look too aggravated. Maybe he got a better night’s sleep or something. Stiles had seen Derek look way worse.

“Where are your police reports?” Derek asked sternly, shutting the loft’s door behind Stiles’ entry.

Stiles clasped his hands together, spinning around on the heels of his shoes to face what he imagined to be a very concerned, potentially angry werewolf. Derek refused to budge from atop the couple of cement steps that were placed in front of the loft’s entrance. He wanted an answer first. Stiles, however, just took Derek’s little statue imitation to internally analyze Derek’s posture and the way that he had his arms crossed. He wanted to try to gauge the level of frustration that Derek had let himself get to. It was only midday, but Stiles swore that Derek just naturally woke up cranky.

“I didn’t bring any this time.” Stiles explained, crossing his own arms. “We don’t need them anymore, though. You guys caught a whiff of one of the alphas.” He turned to look at Peter and Isaac, and then turned back to get Derek’s reaction.

“No.” Derek grit. “We caught the scent of _an_ alpha. That doesn’t mean it’s one of the alpha pack members that have Erica and Boyd.”

“Well, did you at least interrogate the alpha you found? They could have answers!” Stiles exclaimed.

Peter loudly cleared his throat from where he stayed seated on the couch, demanding Stiles’ attention. “We weren’t actually lucky enough to come face-to-face with the alpha...just his stench.” He said with a smile.

Stiles squinted at Peter’s words in discontent, and then looked back to Derek for some sort of explanation.

Derek huffed with a slight shake of his head towards the floor.  “We lost the scent after we tracked it down to the Beacon Hills subway station.”

“The abandoned one that you used to live in?” Stiles asked.

“The one that people actually use, Stiles.” Derek snarled. “The alpha’s scent got too twisted up with all of the other scents from people once we actually got down into the station. It’s a waste of time.”

That was believable. The Beacon Hills subway station was probably the busiest area in the town from open to close. It was always so crowded because the subway was what a lot of Beacon Hills local commuters used to get into the city for work. Stiles could only imagine how hard it would be to continue tracking a single scent once it’s been washed through the scents of everybody else.

“So, what’s the next move?” Isaac piped up from where he stood.

Derek walked over to a simple coat rack and grabbed his leather jacket off one of the hooks—gearing up to leave. “We continue checking off the markers on the maps. If we’re lucky, maybe we’ll cross paths with that alpha’s scent again.”

Stiles shook his head in disagreement, ripping his phone from his pocket. As he stepped towards Derek, he began typing things into his phone. If his common sense served him correct, then there should be a lot of sub-tunnels within the actual tunnels of the main subway lines. They’d be a perfect place for an alpha to hide out. And since the alpha’s scent lead down there in the first place, there was a big chance that the alpha could still be found and questioned.

“Look,” Stiles said, holding up a picture of the underground subway tunnel schematics on his phone. “We should check out the subway tunnels instead of just giving up this lead because the scent you were tracking got mangled. There are several smaller tunnels that extend off from the main ones. The alpha we’re looking for could be hiding out in one of them.”

Derek slipped on his leather jacket and fixed the collar of it while he looked at the display on Stiles’ phone. He was confused as to how Stiles thought to look up the subway line schematics for possible hiding places, but he was also impressed and slightly jealous. He was impressed because he didn’t think Stiles would be so full of intriguing ideas, and he was jealous because if Stiles were an alpha, he’d probably do a better job at it.  

“The kid is right, you know.” Peter said, standing up from the couch. “We could be pleasantly surprised with what we find underneath the dirt in his town.”

Derek grabbed the phone from Stiles’ hand. “The walkways on the sides of the tracks don’t stretch through the entirety of the tunnels.” He pointed out. “We’d have to do this at night after the last couple trains of the night have already settled back in the station, or else we run the risk of being run over.”

“The last train arrives back at the station at midnight.” Isaac spoke up. He remained away from where everybody else stood, but that was kind of the way he worked. He was still somewhat shy and liked to keep to himself despite how he acted alongside Erica and Boyd.

“How do you know?” Stiles asked, turning to face Isaac from a distance.

“Because, I used to take it over to Weaverville to visit my brother’s grave. Every Saturday.” Isaac explained. “The last train left there at eleven-fifteen, and got back here a little after midnight.”

“Okay.” Stiles said. “Then we’ll start searching half past midnight.” He took his phone back from Derek.

Derek looked like he wanted to laugh hysterically out into the expanse of the loft, but only because he knew exactly what Stiles was doing. Stiles was carefully and slyly attempting to insert himself into the search party. However, not even Stiles’ cunning gentleness of self-insertion was enough to get past Derek.

“ _We’ll_ start searching half past midnight.” Derek said, pointing over to Peter and Isaac. “You’ll be at your house, in your bed, sleeping.”

“Okay, first of all, do you really think that I go to bed at midnight? How weak do you honestly think that I am?” Stiles asked rhetorically. “And second of all, I’m not your little secretary. I’m going with you guys to search the tunnels. Deal with it.”

“It’s dangerous. I don’t need a _liability_ piggybacking during this search.” Derek said. “If the alpha were to attack, how would you defend yourself?”

Now it was Stiles who wanted to laugh hysterically out into the expanse of the loft. It was like Derek had preinstalled dialogue responses built into his werewolf motherboard. He was so predictable that Stiles had only anticipated exactly what Derek was going to say.

“Puncturable human flesh…with no healing capability…against the razor width of werewolf claws? I’m pretty sure that you’d lose.” Isaac piped up and stepped slightly closer to the group. Apparently, he was a livelier bunch of blond locks when it involved getting to insult somebody.

Stiles kept his back turned against where Isaac stood, continuing to face Derek, but raised up his fist—middle finger extended—and let Isaac take in its glory from across the room.

“I’m not defenseless. I can protect myself, thank-you very much.” Stiles stated, beginning to grin to himself. His mind wandered instantly to thinking about the genius weapon that he had crafted back in his garage—the one that was currently downstairs in the trunk of his jeep. “Plus, are you forgetting that you got taken down by a sixteen year old kid who was puppeteering a giant lizard monster, Mr. Alpha?”

Derek was about to come out with a sharp remark about how easily Gerard was able to kidnap Stiles, but he bit his tongue. He thought that it would come across too harshly, considering that Stiles was obviously wounded by such event. Being taken away and threatened with the possibility of being killed was a feeling that Derek was all too familiar with.

Regardless, Derek didn’t believe Stiles...not even in the very least. Stiles may have been quick on his feet in a few dire situations, and there was no doubt that Stiles was a fairly intelligent person. However, that still didn’t change the fact that the teenager could probably only bench press about seventy pounds. When matched up to the power that a cold-blooded alpha werewolf could unleash, there was no competition and Stiles was somewhat of a burden to lug around.

“And your experience taking down an _alpha_ werewolf consists of....” Derek asks without even really thinking of the events Stiles has been confronted with.

“Well, there was that one time—a few months ago—when your psychotic uncle tried to kill everybody, so I chucked a molotov cocktail at his face.” Stiles said, watching Derek’s face fall in sudden realization because _‘oh yeah, that did happen’_.

Derek recovered quickly from his memory blunder, solidifying his face in non-existent emotion. “Is that your plan? Set the alpha pack on fire?” Derek asked.

“No. I have something else up my sleeve.” The corner of Stiles’ lip tugged upwards to a devious smirk. “It’s in my jeep.”

Derek’s interest was definitely peaked. As was Isaac’s and Peter’s. They would be lying if they said that they weren’t curious to see what ridiculous plan Stiles had waiting downstairs. Most likely, it would be something beyond ridiculous—probably something that would force Peter to hold back his wicked laughter to avoid humiliating Stiles. Though, Peter saw what an intelligent young man Stiles was. He had potential—more than Scott ever possessed. With that, there was a small chance that Stiles had something wonderfully _brilliant_ up his sleeve.

The four guys made their way downstairs to the parking lot, where they followed Stiles over to his jeep. The three werewolves stood a slight distance away from where Stiles started to open up the trunk of the jeep. It was nothing more than a tiny precaution to what could have potentially caught fire, blown up, or jumped out of the vehicle.

Stiles swung around to face the three, wielding a wooden baseball bat in his hand. It wasn’t a normal baseball bat, though. It was wrapped in black barbed wires, with thorns sticking out in every direction around the surface of the bat. Not only that, but it was also wrapped in what both looked and smelled like wolfsbane. Most of the materials used were things given to him by Deaton for protection against outside supernatural forces.

“Go on.” Stiles said, gripping the base of the bat with both hands and holding it up as if he were about to swing. “Lunge at me like you’re about to rip me to shreds with your razor sharp claws and fangs.” He taunted. “Come on, I’m a _defenseless_ human and you wanna piece.”

The three guys looked as if none of them would budge—scrunching up their noses to the smell of the wolfsbane—until Derek stepped forward and reached towards the shaft of the bat. He wore a straight frown on his face, and wanted nothing more than to prove that a baseball bat with some barb wire and wolfsbane wouldn’t stop an alpha from killing Stiles. Sure, wolfsbane was poisonous, and it would burn like a son of a bitch, but it wouldn’t stop a raging alpha.

Derek’s hand flew towards the bat, but then a painful, crackling burn shot through the palm of his hand, up through the bones of his wrist, and up his arm—all before he could even physically touch the bat. He pulled his hand back in pain, but the pain instantly dulled into a slight discomforting ache.

“Ah, see. You took this for face value _way_ too quickly.” Stiles said. “I took the liberty of drilling out a hole throughout the length of the bat, filled it with some mountain ash, and sealed it back up. It’s werewolf-proof.”

“You have to admit, Derek...the kid has a way with his brain.” Peter acknowledged, patting Derek on his shoulder.

Derek rubbed at his wrist, staring at Stiles.

_Fine_.

The baseball bat filled with mountain ash was a smart invention. Creating a weapon that only a human could wield, and one that supernatural beings couldn’t even think to touch was definitely thinking outside of the box. It was possible that it could prove useful in a fight, should Stiles ever fall into a brawl with any of the alpha pack members. A proper swing of that bat could propel a medium sized werewolf a substantial amount of distance away. Again, _useful_.

The biggest problem was that Stiles was untrained. There wasn’t a doubt in Derek’s mind that Stiles wouldn’t walk into a fight swinging that baseball bat around wildly, not even taking the time to calculate his swings and anticipate the moves of his presented enemies. Stiles would jump into the situation and treat it as if it were a videogame—which it was not.

Derek was torn on his decision to let Stiles tag along and meet up with the rest of them at the subway station. Stiles lacked experience and training. He lacked supernatural strength, durability, and a healing factor. He could easily be taken out, even if he did run around like a lunatic with that damn baseball bat.

Derek didn’t have the time to train him, though. The alpha whose scent originally lead Derek and his pack to the subway station could up and leave at any given moment. That is, if the alpha was even _actually_ hiding out in the tunnels of the subway like Stiles theorized.

Regardless, it was their biggest chance at a solid lead, and risking an argument with Stiles by telling him that he wasn’t allowed to tag along would only cause more problems. Plus, Stiles was stubborn and didn’t take well to authority. He’d probably show up at the subway station, come midnight, and jeopardize everybody else’s’ stealth.

“So, we’ll meet at the subway station entrance half past midnight.” Stiles said, putting his baseball bat back into his jeep. “I’ll bring my bat; you guys bring your claws.”

Derek shifted in his stance, still biting his tongue to keep himself from telling Stiles ‘no’. He looked over to both Peter and Isaac, reading their expressions, and then looked back to Stiles with an apprehensive once-over of Stiles’ vulnerable, non-threatening physique.

“Half past midnight.” Derek confirmed. “If you can’t leave your house without your father noticing, stay home.”

Stiles shook his head in further agreement. He wasn’t worried about his father catching him sneaking out of the house at midnight. His father was usually asleep by that time, mainly because he had to be up for work at seven in the morning.

In addition, Stiles’ father was a heavy sleeper, and typically didn’t wake up in the middle of the night to check and see if Stiles was still in his bedroom. Since Stiles didn’t have a history of sneaking out of his house in the late of night to go to wild parties, or whatever teenagers his age were supposed to be doing, his father trusted him….to an extent.

Stiles hopped into his jeep and set off back to Beacon Hills. He had a sizable amount of time to kill before he had to head out to the subway station to hunt down the mysterious alpha. He decided that he couldn’t just kill time hanging around Derek’s boring loft. After all, that would give Derek time to reconsider his decision to let Stiles tag along. It was better to just leave it at that and not step on any toes in the meanwhile.


	4. Midnight Rendezvous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first big break of the summer search starts off at the Beacon Hills Subway Station.

By the time midnight came around, Stiles’ father had already said his ‘goodnights’ and had fallen sound asleep upstairs in the master bedroom. Stiles was aware that the time he was supposed to rendezvous with Derek and the others was only a mere thirty minutes away, but the drive over to the subway station was only a short five minute drive from his house. It wasn’t like he would be late or anything, and it wasn’t like he was supposed to be early.

Although, as Stiles thought about it, he hadn’t actually gone over any sort of special details with Derek. Not after persuading Derek to let him tag along. All Stiles had really done was wave around his awesome and completely badass werewolf-proof baseball bat, effectively persuading Derek into letting him search the tunnels with everybody else. The topic of arriving at the subway station earlier than the time originally set had not been discussed. Hell, the topic of what to wear hadn’t even gotten discussed.

What was he supposed to wear? Something black and stealthy like in the movies and television shows? If all facts were considered, then what Stiles and the others were about to do technically equated to a top secret mission, even if Derek would snarl at Stiles for calling it that. Stiles didn’t care, though. Hunting down an alpha werewolf to interrogate about the disappearance of the Beacon Hills’ resident alpha’s betas was nothing more than a mission.

Debating on whether or not to wear something black and espionage-esque unraveled quickly in Stiles’ head. He realized that even if he blended into the shadows of the dark subway tunnels, the alpha werewolf that they would be searching for would smell him and would use its special night vision werewolf powers to see in the dark. Clearly, it didn’t matter what he wore. He just hoped that when he arrived to meet with Derek and the others, they wouldn’t be decked out in full blown, black tactical gear.

Stiles tip-toed his way out of his bedroom, down the hallway, and to the door of his father’s bedroom. His father was a heavy sleeper, yes—as bad of a trait that was for a police officer to have—but Stiles still wanted to be extra cautious and make sure that he’d be able to sneak out and sneak back in without getting caught.

He peered into the darkness of his father’s bedroom and held his own breath for a moment so that he could eliminate the distraction of his own breathing. He listened quietly for a moment, only to hear a loud rumble of a snore from his dad. It was a good sign. For one, it meant that he wasn’t dead—which was always good. But for two, it meant that he was probably in a deep sleep and would most definitely— _hopefully_ —stay that way for the rest of the night.

As he pulled into the subway station parking lot, Stiles couldn’t help but take in the interesting sight before him. Normally, the parking lot was jam packed with the cars of people that had to take the subway into the city for work. Only now, as the clock neared half past midnight, the parking lot was dead empty. It was pitch black, all except for the dim street lamps that lined the aisles of the lot.

Stiles scanned the surrounding area with his eyes. It was very clear that he was the only person there. Derek and the others still hadn’t arrived. Given, it wasn’t yet half past midnight—the time that Derek had agreed to. Technically, they weren’t late…but they would be in a couple minutes or so. And Stiles totally looked forward to rubbing the late arrival into their faces. However, Stiles’ joy was promptly shattered when he caught sight of the headlights from Derek’s Camaro pulling into the parking lot.

Dammit. There went Stiles’ hopes and dreams to rub something into all of their smug werewolf faces.

Derek parked his car in an empty parking space directly across from where Stiles had parked his jeep. As Stiles jumped out of his car and grabbed his baseball bat, Derek and the others stepped out of the Camaro. The four-member search party met in the middle of the parking lot aisle—in-between where the two cars sat across from each other—and exchanged casual glances among one another until Derek broke the silence.

“Let’s go.” Derek said, motioning for the others to follow his lead.

Everybody came to stop at the front entrance of the subway station, which had large iron gates locked down across from where people would normally be able to freely enter. Derek eyed the gates, looking for some sort of lock, but there wasn’t one. The gates were locked electronically, with what looked to be a power box connected to the hinge of the gate.

“How do you suggest we get in? Bend the bars?” Isaac asked, observing the metal bars in front of him. He anticipated how easy they would bend in his grip. With his strength, he could pull apart an opening for everybody to squeeze through.

Isaac went to grab onto one of the bars, but was quickly stopped by Derek’s strong hand coming down to grasp his wrist. He looked over to Derek in confusion, only to see that Derek had already disabled the electronic lock. On the wall to the right of the gate was a metal panel with thick cables leading down into the cement ground. Derek simply thought to severe one of the cables with his claws. Luckily, it worked.

Once inside, the four traveled down the large stairwell to the main loading area of the subway station. Grand Central Station, it was not. It was dark and filthy. Stiles was pretty sure that he could hear rats scampering around in the shadows. It was in need of some serious maintenance.

Everything wasn’t entirely dark, however. The walls of the tunnels were lined with small lights that stayed on even after closing hours. Stiles figured that they were probably for maintenance workers that occasionally came down into the tunnels to work on the tracks when the station was closed off to everybody else. Either that, or the subway constructors didn’t think to install “off-switches” or any of the underground lighting.

The subway station below was set up in a way that there were two tracks in the center of the station. Both were used by separate trains that travelled in opposite directions. On both sides of the train tracks, there were large loading docks—lined with benches for people to sit and tirelessly wait on.

Derek walked up to the edge of the loading platform. He looked down to the tracks and then down into the flickering darkness of the tunnel. He sniffed the air, hoping to catch a whiff of the alpha that he wanted to catch, but he was only met with bad luck. The scent wasn’t there.

“We’ll split into two pairs and take on both directions of the track tunnels.” Derek said, looking both ways into both of dark tunnels. “Stiles and I will take the right. Peter, you and Isaac will take the left.”

For a moment, Stiles didn’t know if he had had heard that correctly? Did Derek just seriously pair himself off to search the tunnels with Stiles? Completely willingly? Was he aware that it meant that he’d be down in the tunnels with nobody else to speak with except Stiles? Was Derek malfunctioning?”

Derek jumped off of the loading platform and down onto the track. None of the rails were electrified, so it was perfectly safe. He looked up to everybody else that remained on the platform, although he kept his eyes directed towards both Peter and Isaac. “If you come into contact with the alpha…make noise.” He said. “Do _not_ let them get away.”

“This alpha could just make things a lot easier and come out from hiding in the shadows.” Peter groaned.

“Yeah, well that isn’t going to happen. We’re going to have to drag them out.”

Derek motioned his hands for everybody else to climb down from the platform and get onto the tracks, so they did. Stiles jumped down and stood beside Derek, eyeing down into the dark abyss of their soon-to-be explored territory. Peter and Isaac jumped down to land on the opposite side of where Stiles stood.

As Derek and Stiles turned and started to walk down the side of the inner tunnel that Derek wanted to check out, Isaac suddenly grabbed onto Derek’s shoulder—preventing him from walking any further. Derek turned around with a disgruntled expression on his face, as if Isaac’s touch was causing him the greatest anguish in the world.

“I don’t trust him.” Isaac said, leaning inwards towards Derek’s face. He gestured back towards the spot where Peter was patiently standing—pretending like he couldn’t hear the obviously audible conversation.

“You’ll be fine.” Derek said surely. It came off sounding somewhat uncaring and cold, but there was just a bit of comforting softness tied to the words. Derek was trying. “But you’re smart, so don’t…don’t trust him.”

The two pairings parted and went their separate ways into the tunnels.

Fifteen minutes passed. Stiles and Derek continued to track through the murky, fluorescent graveyard tunnel without stop. They could have never imagined what it would be like to walk down a dark tunnel, but as Stiles would certainly describe it—it was like getting stuck outside of a videogame map’s boundaries and getting stuck in a serious glitch.

The tunnel continued on and on, yet the surroundings never changed. It was the same cement floor, with the same cement walls, and the same dim mint-green colored fluorescent lights that occasionally flickered. It was almost mind bending. However, Stiles and Derek knew that they were most likely still within Beacon Hills, despite being unable to accurately gauge how close they were to leaving Beacon Hill’s borders.

The two walked in complete silence, with the exception of their breathing and the clapping sound that their shoes made against the cement tunnel floor and they walked. But a walk with Stiles wasn’t without a little conversation.

“Don’t you think that it’s a stupid ass move to send Isaac off with that lunatic?” Stiles asked, breaking the silence. He had already stayed silent for a considerable amount of time. He hoped that Derek enjoyed it while it lasted.

“Peter’s not going to do anything.”

“And how do you exactly know that for sure? Do you remember the fact that he’s a murderer, right?” Stiles asked.

Derek huffed. “If he does something, he’ll have to answer to me...which is why he’ll behave. I’m his alpha now.”

“Because you’re _so_ intimidating as an alpha.” Stiles said sarcastically.

Derek stopped in his own tracks and whipped around to stare Stiles down. He flashed his eyes red for a brief second to ensure that Stiles understood the direction that he was steering the conversation. It was meant to be a warning, but it was unknown whether or not Stiles would actually take it such.

Stiles stopped when Derek did and starred Derek directly in the eyes. He almost snickered to himself when he saw Derek’s bright green eyes flare red, because wow. It just _didn’t_ come across as intimidating as it was probably supposed to. Maybe that time back at the sheriff station’s holding dock. That was kind of intimidating…also kind of impressive…and hot. Derek had a fierce exterior, but something just didn’t click with the whole big bad alpha status.

“Because you’re _so_ intimidating as alpha.” Stiles repeated with an added flare of deadpan sarcasm.

Derek didn’t break his stare, even though Stiles had already called his bluff. He didn’t know what to do. Stiles wasn’t one of his betas. A beta would certainly feel a sense of authority radiating from Derek and would quickly back down to their rank. That’s how it worked. But Stiles wasn’t a beta, he was a human. A human that clearly didn’t care that Derek was a werewolf—let alone what werewolf rank Derek held.

“Listen, I’m serious.” Stiles said, dismissing Derek’s whole display of power as he breezed past the emasculated werewolf. “How do you know that we can even trust Peter? He could literally snap at any moment and kill us all without warning. Like, why is he even helping?”

There was a long pause—probably because Derek was too busy pouting—but then Derek spoke up.

“You don’t understand how being a werewolf works, Stiles.” Derek grit out. “There is a sense of loyalty and obedience when it comes to being the beta of an alpha. Peter knows what it means. He follows my direction and my authority. He also knows that coming back from the dead left him weak. He wouldn’t make a move against me or my pack.”

“He’s probably playing you. He’s bad news.” Stiles explained. He started to swing his baseball bat around like it was a baton, just to give his hands something to do.

“He’s not bad news for the moment, so drop it.”

“Y’know, you talked up a lot of shit about not trusting me when we were trapped in that swimming pool and I was holding your ass above water. Yet, you trust Peter?”

“You asked me to trust you, and I said ‘no’.” Derek said. “It was simple.”

Stiles shrugged. “Maybe you don’t have trust issues, maybe you just trust too easily—”

Derek grabbed onto Stiles’ forearm and yanked him to a stop. Stiles turned around to figure out what the hell Derek thought that he was doing, but Derek stood deathly still—gazing off into the darkness of the tunnel ahead of them. It was kind of like when a cat heard a noise and perked up to analyze their situation.

“Hey, what the fuck—” Stiles shouted, but Derek quickly shushed him and clasped his hand over Stiles’ mouth.

Stiles mumbled wildly into the palm of Derek’s hand while he tried to pry Derek’s hand away from his mouth. He tugged and pulled at Derek’s forearm, but his human strength really wasn’t a match for Derek’s werewolf strength. He continued to shout obscenities into Derek’s hand, but Derek only shushed him for the second time.

“Be _quiet_.” Derek whispered angrily. “Somebody’s ahead of us. It’s the alpha.” He whispered again, but this time, Stiles stopped struggling.

Derek took his hand off of Stiles’ face and extended his claws, letting his eyes flare red again. He stalked forward in soft steps, inching himself closer to where the alpha’s scent was emitting from. Stiles followed behind slowly, wielding his baseball bat in both hands—ready to swing if it came to that.

There was no doubt that the alpha hiding in the tunnels had already been alerted to Derek and Stiles’ presence. The alpha would have heard their breathing, their conversation about trust, and most likely even smelled their scents. The element of surprise was non-existent, though one thing was for certain....the alpha was well aware that Derek was an alpha, too.

As the two edged closer down the track, the alpha’s scent grew stronger. Just a few feet from where Derek and Stiles stood, there looked to be a single entryway that lead off from the main track tunnel. It was one of the several sub-tunnels that Stiles had cleverly pointed out when he had brought up the subway schematics on his phone. It was where the alpha’s scent was coming from.

“Get ready—” Derek started, but was abruptly interrupted by a massive blow to the back of the head. It sent him tumbling into the cement floor in front of him. He was momentarily stunned, but recovered rather quickly and whipped around to see the alpha that they had been chasing.”

The alpha was young—probably no older than twenty years old. He had pale skin and jet black hair that was styled upwards so that it actually looked sharp to the touch. From what he was wearing, he was obviously not some feral werewolf. He looked rather wealthy and well-kept. He looked like he’d be the snobbiest guy to ever walk through Beacon Hills—if only Jackson Whittemore didn’t exist.

Derek jumped up back to his feet and signaled for Stiles to step back against the wall of the tunnel. Both the unnamed alpha and Derek stared at one another, snarling and snapping their fangs together in quick chomps. Stiles watched from where he stood up against the wall. He saw Derek’s sideburns start to thicken and grow out in length, as well as his eyebrows fade away underneath the hard werewolf facial muscles that seemed to come around whenever he wolfed out.

Derek let out a deafening roar—loud enough to signal to Peter and Isaac—wherever they were. It would let them know that they alpha in question had been located. The alpha, however, let out an equally as loud roar, as if challenging Derek’s power.

The two werewolves lunged at each other, clashing together in the middle of the tracks. The alpha threw a few solid punches, but Derek managed to successfully block and counter with vicious punches of his own. Derek shot his fist forward through the defensive block that the opposing alpha had created with his forearms and grabbed onto the alpha’s throat. He hurled him into the air and slammed him down into the ground with a loud crack.

The alpha recovered and dug his claws into Derek’s ankles from where he remained on the floor after being slammed down. Derek roared out in pain, leaving himself vulnerable for a moment. It was the chance that the challenging alpha needed and had no problem taking advantage of.

The alpha rose up to stand in front of Derek. Using his claws, he slashed a deep gash into Derek’s abdomen and watched the blood start to pour down to the cement. He kicked at Derek’s kneecap—shattering it—and forced Derek down to a kneeling stance on the track of the tunnel.

As Derek mentally battled with himself to block out the pain that he was experiencing to regain his footing and continue the fight, the alpha swung at Derek’s face. He landed a crushing blow to the side of Derek’s face. The force of the punch sent Derek toppling into the opposite tunnel wall from where Stiles stood—rending him unconscious.

Stiles geared up and solidified his stance against the alpha. The alpha had already taken down Derek and Stiles had no plans of letting the alpha get away with it. Derek was unconscious and the other two werewolves in the tunnel were nowhere to be found. It meant that the fight was now completely up to him.

The alpha turned to face Stiles, hunched over with a snarled expression on his face.

“Are you kidding me? A human.” The alpha scoffed. He regained his composure and let himself shift back to a formal appearance, although he kept his claws extended. “Correction, a human with a tricked out baseball bat. Did you not just witness me take down your little werewolf friend with my bare hands?”

“Does arrogance and self-praise come with the title of alpha werewolf, or do you just naturally enjoy the taste of your own dick?” Stiles laughed.

The alpha snorted laughed and reached his hands forward to rip away Stiles’ baseball bat. When the alpha’s hands got too close to the wooden surface of the bat, it looked like they crashed into an invisible barrier. It forced the alpha to retract his hands in pain.

With the alpha momentarily distracted, Stiles swung his bat and struck the werewolf across the jaw. It sent him spiraling down to the ground, only for him to land on his hands and knees. Faced away from Stiles, the alpha shook his head—partly in disbelief and partly to shake away the aching sting of being hit in the face with a mountain ash infused baseball bat.

“Son of a bitch…” The alpha muttered, scratching his claws along the concrete floor.

Stiles placed his foot onto the alpha’s back and pushed the werewolf down flat against the tracks. He was aware that he didn’t have the strength to actually keep the werewolf pinned down to the ground, so Stiles’ quick thinking shot into play. He laid his baseball bat horizontally across the back of the alpha’s neck. The line of mountain ash within the baseball bat essentially acted like a medieval wooden stock and kept the alpha’s head pinned in place against the ground.

“I will _rip_ you apart.” The alpha screamed.

“Well, that’s rude.” Stiles scoffed.

Stiles rushed over to where Derek was splayed against the tunnel wall. He was still unconscious, but at least he wasn’t dead. Stiles kneeled at Derek’s side and carefully cradled Derek’s head in one of his arms while he slapped at the side of Derek’s face to wake him up.

Derek eventually came to with a loud inhale of air. He pushed upwards to sit upright and collect his thoughts. He looked dazed and confused, albeit he had just gotten himself knocked unconscious and had his kneecap busted. Derek looked to Stiles—still confused—and then looked around to see where the alpha had gone.

“The alpha...where is he?” Derek asked.

“He’s behind me.” Stiles said, maneuvering his body slightly to the side so that Derek could get full slight of the alpha that was pinned to the ground by a bat.

“How did you…” Derek managed, struggling to stand up on his own two feet. Stiles helped him up.

Stiles stifled his laughter, “I told you that I’m not defenseless.”

Derek fought against his urge to roll his eyes, mostly because he was grateful for Stiles’ detainment of the alpha werewolf. He had fought against the alpha, but to no prevail. It had been Stiles, the human, who had been able to wisely take down a werewolf. And the fact that he had done it with only the aid of a rigged baseball bat remained impressive to Derek.

Derek started off towards where the alpha laid against the concrete—limping at first, but gradually earning back his normal stride as his kneecap healed. “Where...are... _my_...betas?” He growled and crouched down closer to the alpha to analyze him.

“I’m not an idiot—”

“Well, you’re being held to the ground by a baseball bat…” Stiles interrupted, but was quickly shushed by Derek.

“I know that you are you pack do not collect betas.” The alpha continued.

“What do you mean?” Derek asked.

“I know that the members of the alpha pack do not collect beta werewolves! And even if you monsters did, you wouldn’t care enough about them to search for them if they were to go missing…” The alpha paused. “So, if you’re not an alpha pack member, who are you?”

“My name is Derek Hale.” Derek said, standing up.

“Hale?” The alpha drew silent. “There are no more Hales in Beacon Hills. They were murdered.”

“Not all of us were.” Derek crossed his arms. “So, who are you? And if you’re not an alpha pack member, what the hell are you doing here? You know better than to stick around the territory of another alpha.”

“Matthew Danvers.” Matthew said. “And I wasn’t aware that an alpha occupied this territory. Not since the Hales were wiped out. I came here in search of the alpha pack...to kill them for what they did.”

Derek was intrigued to learn more. Though, he was aware that whatever Matthew was about to say wouldn’t be pretty. Nothing good could ever come from the alpha pack. Whatever they did and wherever they went, bad things happened.

“What did they do?” Derek asked.

“They murdered my pack.”

Derek looked as though he had begun to believe the words coming out of the person who had just rendered him unconscious. Again, Derek seemed to trust incredibly easily. Stiles, on the other hand, had absolutely no problem distrusting somebody and wouldn’t play nicely with somebody that attempted to destroy him first.

When Derek looked as if he was about to speak to Matthew again, Stiles interrupted. “Derek, he’s probably lying.”

“But he’s not.” A voice echoed from behind where Stiles stood. It was Peter with Isaac striding alongside him. They walked up to greet everybody else. “Listen to his voice, Derek. Take a moment to breathe in the sheer lust for revenge within this alpha’s bones.”

Peter was telling the truth. Matthew reeked of negative emotion, and not because he had been taken down by a teenage human with a baseball bat. He smelled of anger and misery. Like Peter said, the smell of desired revenge loomed heavily around Matthew. It was clear that the young alpha wasn’t lying. He really _did_ have a score to settle with the alpha pack.

“Let him up.” Derek sighed, motioning for Stiles to lift the baseball bat off of Matthew’s neck.

“Derek—” Stiles began in opposition, but Derek only repeated himself once more.

_Whatever_.

Stiles was hesitant to let Matthew up. He wasn’t sold on the story of Matthew hunting down the alpha pack for revenge, and he definitely didn’t trust Peter’s judgment. For all he knew, Peter was probably in cahoots with the lone alpha, hellbent on taking over the world or something. The only thing that Stiles actually knew for sure was that if Matthew dared to pull a sneak attack out from under his sleeve after being let up off the ground, Stiles wouldn’t have a problem cracking his baseball bat over Matthew’s head for the second time of the night.

“What kind of alpha lets a human into their pack?” Matthew sneered, rolling his neck to ease the discomforting ache of where Stiles’ bat had laid.

“He’s not pack.” Derek confirmed.

That kinda stung, but Stiles didn’t really care. He wasn’t hanging around Derek to become a part of his pack. It was only to help find Erica and Boyd to make sure that more people didn’t die. Though, it wouldn’t feel all that bad to feel included in Derek’s little band of misfits. And it wouldn’t be too much to ask for Derek to quit acting like he didn’t appreciate the generous help that he was receiving.

Silence grew around the crowd while Matthew dusted off his outfit. Derek was unsure how to further approach the discussion of what had just happened, considering that he was still slightly pissed at how his kneecap was still causing him great trouble.

“Why did the alpha pack kill your pack?” Isaac asked.

“They asked me to join their pack and they didn’t take kindly to my refusal. After they were finished butchering my pack, they attempted to gut me too. I was lucky to escape.” Matthew said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be moving on.”

“Where are you going to go?” Derek asked.

“I’ll find a new town and search for those monsters there. The alpha pack clearly isn’t here.”

“What do you mean that the alpha pack isn’t here anymore? What proof do you have that they’re gone?” Derek’s stance grew stronger.

“I’ve been here in Beacon Hills for the past three days. If they _were_ in this miserable little town, they would have already caught a whiff of my scent and come to finish me off.” Matthew cleared his throat. “Or, at least, they would have _tried_.”

Nobody spoke a word.

Derek was occupied inside of his own mind, wrestling with the fact that he had been chasing air. The alpha pack wasn’t even in Beacon Hills. They could have fled to anywhere in the country and Derek had spent all of his time hunting them down in a place that they hadn’t been.

He was dumbfounded. How could the alpha pack not be in Beacon Hills? What about their “calling card” that was painted in black across the front door of his old house? Clearly, it signified their arrival in the town, but was that it? The alpha pack announced their arrival only to kidnap some betas and leave?

Something didn’t add up.

Matthew brushed through the rest of the guys, coming up to stand at Derek’s side. “Good luck with trying to find the alpha pack. I do hope, however, that you don’t anticipate strangling any answers out of their bodies when you find them. I’ll have them dead long before you catch up to their heels.”

He pat Derek’s shoulder tenderly—offering meaningless comfort, before he walked off down into the shadows of the tunnel.

Derek virtually stomped his entire way out from the underground subway tunnels like a toddler that hadn’t gotten what he wanted. Finding out that you’ve been chasing the wrong leads, thus only amplifying the risks of never seeing your betas again would do that to a person. So, Derek’s anger was completely understandable.

Stiles and the others trailed after him as they barreled towards the exit, occasionally calling out for him to slow down and take a breath. Well, Stiles did. Peter spent most of the time snickering to himself under his breath, but loud enough so that Derek was sure to hear it. Meanwhile Isaac stayed silent; probably annoyed that he’d have to spend the night in the loft with the beast from down below.

When everybody reemerged from the subway station, Derek continued on his warpath back to where both of the cars were parked.

“ _Jesus_. Would stop for a fucking minute and express your emotions with words like a normal person?” Stiles shouted. He jogged up to where Derek led the group, and grabbed his wrist—tearing him to a halt in front of the jeep and Camaro.

“Surely you’re smart enough to see what I’m feeling without the help of my vocal explanation, Stiles.” Derek ripped his wrist away from Stiles’ hold, turning around to face the teenager with a snarl. “That alpha is a liar. The alpha pack is here—somewhere in Beacon Hills. They have Erica and Boyd and I’m going to find them...by myself.”

Derek hopped into the Camaro and sped off before anybody could stop him—leaving behind Peter and Isaac who had both rode to the subway station along with him. Stiles hurried to jump into his jeep so that he could give chase to Derek, but was met with a vicious grip to his forearm from Peter.

“Let him go.” Peter said. “You can look into his eyes and you’ll find yourself an alpha, but he’s a lone wolf by nature. He always has been.”

“He’s a loner...I get it.” Stiles acknowledged, unimpressed with his conversation with Derek’s fucked up uncle. “What are we supposed to do now?”

Peter sighed dramatically. “Go home. I’ve been deprived of a good night’s sleep for far too long.” He trailed off, walking away towards the main road—despite being driven to the location in the first place.

“I don’t have a key to get back into the loft.” Isaac said, crossing his arms. “Do you mind dropping me off at Scott’s for the night?”

Stiles shrugged. He didn’t really want to drive Isaac all the way over to Scott’s, but he couldn’t just leave the guy stranded in the middle of the subway parking lot. The last thing that needed to happen was for the alpha pack to swoop in on the last remaining beta that Derek had.

Stiles dropped Isaac off at Scott’s house, despite it being nearly three o’clock in the morning. Scott was asleep, but wouldn’t mind hosting Isaac for the remainder of the night. Plus, he would probably be too tired to ask any questions as to why Isaac was roaming around the town in the middle of the night like a zombie.


	5. Woodlands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek was the kind of person that liked to work alone, but Stiles wasn't going to let it fly.

The next day, Stiles slept far longer than he had originally anticipated. It was due to the fact that he hadn’t even touched down onto the softness of his bed until four o’clock in the morning. In addition, his mind had been racing around with thoughts about what Matthew had said. It had prevented him from chilling down into a cool, sleep-inducing mood.

He awoke to no new text messages on his phone, but found it pretty unsurprising. Of course Derek hadn’t texted. He had probably been up all night searching for the alpha pack. He was probably still burning off anger by combing through the woods and sniffing out all the scent trails he could possibly manage to latch onto. The man had probably worked himself into oblivion throughout the rest of the night—much more than even his werewolf body could handle.

Due to the fact that Derek had run off like a bad tempered child the night before, there hadn’t been a proper discussion as to how everybody else would approach the continuation in searching for Erica and Boyd. If Derek had been under the impression that his tasteless exit from the subway station parking lot meant that he’d be the only one to search from now on, he had another thing coming. Stiles was dedicated to the cause, and he wouldn’t stop until the two betas were found. Derek would probably try to make everything about himself, but it wouldn’t work. Stiles was well aware of his own strong-mindedness.

After shooting out several texts to Derek’s phone, asking if he had found anything more and if everybody was still supposed to meet at the loft, Stiles concluded that Derek was probably ignoring him. He probably wasn’t in the mood to text, but Stiles didn’t let it rattle his bones. Derek was an incompetent texter, anyways. Plus, being ignored by Derek via text wasn’t anything new. Derek was a face-to-face kind of man.

Stiles made his way over to Beacon Heights faster than he normally did. Of course, he hadn’t really watched his speed on the way over, but he was sure that his father could probably pull the strings on a speeding ticket if that’s what needed to be done…even if Stiles’ father’s jurisdiction didn’t stretch over Beacon Hills’ county line.

By the time that Stiles finally got to the front door of Derek’s loft, it was even later in the afternoon. Scott was probably out of his summer school classes for the day, so there was a risk that he could attempt to drop by Stiles’ house unannounced—only to find Stiles gone. If it came to that, Stiles was sure that he’d be able to think of a clever excuse. Stiles proclaimed himself as the Master of Excuses.

“Derek, I know that you’re in there! I saw your car down in the parking lot!” Stiles yelled, banging his fist down on the metal door of Derek’s loft. “Don’t be such a fucking drama wolf, Derek. You could have avoided this if you had only answered my twenty-something text messages!”

Stiles continued to bang on Derek’s loft—no luck received. He pressed the side of his face to the door and tried to listen in on what was happening on the other side. Stiles couldn’t hear anything for shit. The door was way too thick and all he could hear was air whooshing by and the faint clunking sound of the elevator moving down the elevator shaft.

“So help me god—I’m not afraid to key the fuck out of your car, Derek.” Stiles shouted once more.

The doors of the elevator opened and Isaac slid out into the corridor. He had a greasy bag of fast food in his hands. He seemed pretty unmoved considering the fact that he had stumbled upon an all out screaming match between Stiles and Derek’s front door. Apparently, he had seen worse.

“Don’t bother. I’ve been at it all morning. He’s not opening up.” Isaac explained, crouching down to sit at the side of Derek’s loft entrance. “He has to come out eventually, though.”

“This is the same man whose favorite activity used to be moping around the charred remains of his house...and he was at that for _months_!” Stiles rubbed at the temples of his forehead. “Ugh, he’s not going to come out of there unless the alpha pack _themselves_ ring the doorbell.”

The loft door flew open to reveal a very shirtless and a very, _very_ sweaty Derek Hale—looking just as miffed as always. “I don’t have a doorbell.” was all that he said, but he allowed Stiles and Isaac to finally enter.

“It’s so nice of you to allow visitors today.” Stiles said bitterly.

Derek walked over to his bed and grabbed a folded towel that had been set on top of the bed comforter for post-workout cleanup. He started to pat down his naked torso, ridding himself of sweat. Stiles couldn’t help but take notice about multiple things…and not just the amount of sweat that Derek had produced.

During the kanima’s wild reign, Stiles had clashed with Derek quite a few times. Though, most of which were inopportune. And throughout a handful of those times, Stiles had been unable to keep himself from subtly eyeing how much more Derek had bulked up after becoming an alpha. It was unfair that slicing open somebody’s throat and becoming an alpha automatically made you hotter.

The subtle looking wasn’t Stiles’ fault, though. It was clear that Derek took very good care of his physique and Stiles only wanted to applaud him for keeping himself in such great shape. Plus, what was he supposed to do when confronted with an undeniably handsome person? Not notice? The only sickening part about all of it was how model-like Derek was. He could have anybody he wanted just by flashing his abs—and well, how exactly was that fair?”

“From now on, I’ll search for Erica and Boyd by myself.” Derek tossed his towel to the floor. “They are _my_ betas and _I_ should have never enlisted help from anybody else.”

“What? Suddenly this is a one-man job? Screw that.” Stiles snapped out of his mental ogling of Derek’s torso with a vengeance. “Would you knock it off with the whole ‘I do things by myself’ gimmick? I’m here to help. I actually want to help you find Erica and Boyd.”

“It’s not a gimmick and I don’t need your help...now go home, Stiles.” Derek said.

Stiles turned to Isaac. “Feel free to jump in with your defense anytime, Isaac.”

“I’d like to keep my bedroom.” Isaac said, turning away from Stiles.

Not only was it sad that Isaac actually believed that his privilege of not being homeless hinged on following rules under Derek’s ridiculous dictatorship. But Stiles was also pretty annoyed by the fact that Isaac suddenly seemed to not care about contributing to finding Erica and Boyd anymore—especially when Stiles knew that Isaac did care.

“No, no. We already did this _‘go home, Stiles’_ shit before we actually started trying to find Erica and Boyd. It didn’t work then and it’s not going to work now, Derek.” Stiles stomped his foot on the ground, demanding reason.

Derek raised an eyebrow inquisitively, as if questioning what Stiles thought that he was going to do. He walked towards the teenager, grabbed him by the wrist, and started to walk him back towards the door.

“Thank you for your participation.” Derek said, smugly. He continued to pull Stiles back out of the loft, despite the slew of obscenities being flung from Stiles’ mouth. “This...is private property and you’re trespassing. So, as I said before, go home.” He shoved Stiles out of the loft and shut the door.

Stiles banged on the loft’s door one last time with a loud, resounding “Fuck you!” echoing through the concrete and steel corridor.

The ride back to Beacon Hills from Derek’s loft was a fiery one. Stiles was pissed—beyond pissed. He was furious. How could Derek be such an asshole? After the week or so that they’d spent together trying to find Erica and Boyd, how could Derek still be so smug and foolishly childish? If Derek wanted to search for Erica and Boyd by himself, fine. Stiles had absolutely _no_ problem letting him run off into the night, sniffing the air by his lonesome until his little werewolf nose fell off.

It didn’t matter because Stiles had his own plans. He had no intention of hanging up his anti-werewolf baseball bat and giving up his promise to finding Erica and Boyd. If Derek didn’t want assistance, Stiles would go out by himself. Derek’s betas were still out there and Derek’s own immaturity was only prolonging their missing state.

When the night rolled around, Stiles waited for his father to fall asleep and then he snuck out of the house just like he had when he went to meet up with Derek and the others at the subway station. Nonetheless, this time was different. He wouldn’t be meeting up with anybody. It was just him and night.

He thought to maybe ask Scott but decided against it. Even though Derek had been an asshole, Stiles agreed that Scott should take advantage of a relaxing summer vacation. Even if Scott was in summer school, that alone was better than combing through the town with the risk of getting murdered by alphas.

Stiles drove out to an edge of Beacon Hills—not the one that lead to Derek’s old house. Most of the area looked like open farm land, except that none of it actually was. There were no crops, just fields of dead grass that happened to look somewhat similar to growing wheat. Past the fields of dead grass were scattered woodlands. They were the areas that nobody ever really ventured off into unless they were the kind of people who wanted to get away from all forms of society. It was the perfect place to start looking.

Stiles parked his jeep right outside of where the road met with a line of tall, leafless trees. He didn’t know how far back the woods stretched beyond where he was starting, but from where he stood, he couldn’t see very far. A quick gaze past the front line of trees revealed nothing but pitch blackness. It looked like a scene from a slasher film. Stiles knew that he was taking on the role of the idiot teenager that willingly walked into a possible death trap, but he needed to search the area for any sign of Erica and Boyd.

He switched on his flashlight, pointed it into the darkness ahead of him, and then started walking. In one hand he held his baseball bat and in his other hand he held his flashlight—swaying it back and forth to scan the area around him. He silently murmured to himself that he should have started his search during the daytime when things looked less murderous, but he had still been reeling from his confrontation with Derek when he had made his original decision.

As Stiles descended deeper into the woods, he looked around for any signs of another person’s presence. Footprints or pieces from articles of clothing would have been perfect. He didn’t have a werewolf sense of smell, so tracking scents was entirely off the table. However, he still had his eyes, a flashlight, and common sense. All he wanted to do was find a sign that somebody else had been in the woods, too.

“Come on, guys.” Stiles whispered, talking to Erica and Boyd. “Please be out here…preferably _without_ the company of the alpha pack. If I could just find you gu—”

The sharp sound of a twig getting stepped on and snapped in half sounded from directly behind him. Stiles turned around, only to see a shadowy figure with glaring red eyes standing off in the distant darkness. He quickly flashed his light towards the figure, but it had already darted off.

Suddenly, a low growl snarled from a different direction. The sound was close. Stiles could hear quick footsteps running around the area of which he stood in place. He was unsure how many alphas were closing in on him and Stiles’ flashlight offered no help because he couldn’t shine his light in the direction of the sounds fast enough to catch a glimpse of the assailants.

Stiles held out his flashlight towards the direction of another barked out growl, only to get brushed past by a shadowed figure and to have his flashlight ripped from his hand. No flashlight, _great_. But it wasn’t a total loss. Not having to hold onto the flashlight allowed Stiles to tightly grip his baseball bat with both hands—granting him the potential to serve up a more powerful swing.

He took his stance, holding his baseball bat up like he was about to hit a home run. The sounds of the growls and footsteps around him continued and only seemed to intensify. He’d occasionally catch a glimpse of a pair of red eyes, but the alphas around him were circling him too quickly. It was too difficult.

“Come on, you furry son of a bitch.” Stiles grit out, gripping his bat harder.

From his backside, Stiles was tackled and pinned stomach first to the ground. His baseball bat was sent rolling off into the darkness—away from Stiles’ immediate reach. Stiles immediately thought to himself that it was all over. He closed his eyes and waited to be bitten…or scratched…or ripped apart. He knew that something vicious was bound to happen, but all he got was the word, ‘dead’, growled into his ear by a voice that was all too familiar.  

The man who had tackled Stiles to the ground and almost gave him a heart attack eventually stood up and let Stiles stand back up on his own two feet. Stiles turned around to face the man, only to find Derek Hale’s moonlit face staring back at him.

“You son of a bitch…” Stiles grumbled furiously. “I thought I was dead.”

“And if I were one of the alphas from the alpha pack, you would be.” Derek said, dusting a couple leaves off of Stiles’ chest. “What the hell do you think you’re doing out here?”

“I’m searching for Erica and Boyd…by myself! You know, since you wanted to go solo. Sorry, Beyonce. This Destiny’s Child doesn’t have a problem with the damn disbandment. I’m fine searching for them without you.” Stiles scoffed. “How did you even know that I’d be out here?”

“You drove right past me a couple miles ago.”

“So, you followed me.” Stiles stated. “Total stalker.”

“If that’s what you want to call it…” Derek trailed off, looking away from where Stiles continued to stand in front of him. “I knew you were running off to do something stupid and life threatening when you turned onto this road. Why can’t you just do yourself a favor a stay out of danger? The closer we get to these alphas, the closer you get to a long life cut short.”

Stiles crossed his arms—partly because he thought that it made him look sterner, but also because it was pretty chilly and he had forgotten to take his jacket. “The closer we get to these alphas, the closer Erica and Boyd get to enjoying the long lives that they deserve to live.”

“It’s just safer for me to do this alone.” Derek gruffed. “You heard what Matthew said. The alpha pack killed this entire pack—”

“I’m not pack.” Stiles interrupted, enticing Derek to turn around to face Stiles once again. “Those were your words. And sure, you probably operate better as a _lone wolf_ , but this is taking you out of your comfort zone whether you enjoy it or not. Maybe it’ll be good for you.”

Derek geared up to reply—his words were on the tip of his tongue—but a sudden gust of wind blew past his face, alerting him to a nearby scent. The scent wasn’t the strongest, but the familiar metallic smell of it was enough for Derek to know what it was. It was blood.

He could tell that it wasn’t from an animal. It was human. Well, not technically human. It was the blood of a werewolf. Also, Derek could easily tell that the blood was fairly fresh. It wasn’t from a moderately wounded, yet alive werewolf that was just struggling and staggering through the woods in search of medical assistance. The blood was from a werewolf who had recently died recently.

Stiles watched Derek’s face tense up unexpectedly. He watched Derek’s nose crinkle up in the wind and sniff the surrounding air. He had seen the man do it a couple times before. Most of the time it happened instinctively, almost as if Derek’s instincts made him want to sniff and analyze new scents. It was weird to see somebody just randomly sniff the air, but Stiles figured that being able to smell something a mile away was a cool ability to have.

“What? Do you smell something? Erica and Boyd?” Stiles asked enthusiastically.

“It’s blood.” Derek confirmed, remaining stiff in his posture as he continued to sniff the air around him.

Derek handed the flashlight back to Stiles—the one that he had ripped away from Stiles’ hands earlier—and began to walk off into the thicker part of the dark woods. Stiles picked up his bat and followed closely behind; aiming the beam of his flashlight in the direction that Derek was walking in.

With Derek leading the charge, Stiles began to mentally prepare himself for what the two of them would eventually stumble onto. It was a scent of blood, which meant that they’d probably step into something gruesomely disgusting. That was how things in Beacon Hills typically worked and Stiles didn’t think that he’d be able to stomach a mutilated corpse.

In addition, Derek had seemed genuinely alarmed by the scent of blood. It meant that the blood probably didn’t belong to that of an innocent woodland creature. The blood belonged to something human, or similar to a human—something supernatural, maybe.

Regardless, Stiles didn’t want to walk into a terrifying murder scene in the middle of the woods. It was late and Stiles’ stomach was still working on digesting the microwaved taquitos that he had chowed down on for dinner. The last thing he wanted to do was see _that_ mess spewed across an already distasteful scene of blood and guts.

“We’re about to bump into something majorly dead, aren’t we?” Stiles asked.

“Why do you ask stupid questions?” Derek replied.

The two of them continued to track through the woods, carefully stepping over large branches and keeping the sound of their own footwork to a minimum. There probably weren’t any nearby threats that would lock onto the sound of their movement—Derek would have sensed them—but staying somewhat quiet was just a precaution.

Upon reaching a grassy patch of vacant space, outlined by the surrounding thicket of tall trees, Derek abruptly halted in his own tracks. He extended his arm out to the side, keeping Stiles from continuing any further into the open space.

“Wait.” Derek whispered, looking out into the dark area beyond.

The grassy patch was silvered by the strong moonlight that hung over the open space. Though it was bright, it left everything heavily shadowed in hard shapes. However, thanks to his own werewolf vision, Derek could easily see the objects beyond that remained darkened.

There was one shape, out in the middle of the field, which caught Derek’s attention. The scent of blood seemed to flow out from that direction, and the large, slumped over dark shape looked ominous. Common sense told Derek that it was a dead body, and by walking up closer to it, he was proved right.

“Oh, god. I totally did not need to get a whiff of that.” Stiles groaned, covering his nose as he stepped closer to the bloody corpse.

Derek knelt down closer to the dead body, looking over the wounds. They were claw marks. It was undeniable. The identity of the dead werewolf was just as equally undeniable.

“It’s Matthew.” Derek said softly, shutting his eyes shut.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. Matthew? From last night?” Stiles asked. “You think the alpha pack paid him a visit after we got done questioning him?”

“That looks to be the case.”

Looking down upon Matthew’s bloodied body sent shivers down Derek’s spine. The guy had been so young and yet the alpha pack hadn’t bothered to spare him. His throat had been ripped out and his body was covered in vicious claw marks. If that’s what the alpha pack would do to an alpha, what would they do to two teenage beta werewolves?

Derek stood up. He looked just as solid as he always did, but inside, he was shaken. The thought of what the alpha pack could have already done to both Erica and Boyd was unbearable.

“We should get out of here.” Derek said.

Stiles gripped his baseball bat a little harder. “Why?” He asked in a serious tone. “Do you sense the alphas nearby?”

“No, but it’s not the safest place to be.”

The two made their way back to the main road where their cars were parked. Stiles was still on high-alert, ready to pummel any werewolf that thought it would be wise to jump out of the darkness and attack. Derek looked calm, but Stiles figured that he probably wasn’t that calm on the inside. After all, how could anybody be calm after stumbling upon a dead body?

“Well, I guess Matthew was wrong when he said that the alpha pack wasn’t in Beacon Hills anymore.” Stiles walked up to the side of his jeep.

Derek walked up to the side of his own car and turned to face Stiles to continue the conversation. “There wasn’t ever a possibility of the alpha pack being gone. There were just some things that didn’t add up.”

“What _‘things’_?”

“If the alpha pack asked Matthew to join their pack, then that means that they’re recruiting.” Derek looked towards the ground, paused, and exhaled loudly in a frustrated manner.

“Okay, well, they haven’t asked you, right? No strange letters? No emails? No dead deer on your doorstep?” Stiles stopped dead in his tracks with a look of shock on his face. “Derek, don’t tell me that they’ve invited you to brunch dates.” He said with sarcastic seriousness, smiling a bit.

Derek glared in response. “They’re not here to recruit me. That’s most likely the reason as to why things differ from Matthew and I’s separate run-ins with the alphas.”

“Makes sense.” Stiles said. “I mean, don’t forget that pretty little work of art that they left on the front door of your house. The threat.” He elaborated. “What kind of pack invitation would that be?”

The chilled night air momentarily stilled around the two. The silence in the open farm-like area was almost deadening, yet somewhat peaceful despite the circumstance. Like the dead body of a twenty-something year old alpha rotting back in the shadows of the dense woodlands.

“If we’re going off of your map, the Beacon Hills Marina is the next place that we should look for Erica and Boyd.” Derek opened the door to his car, but didn’t get in. He stuck around and studied the look of confusion on Stiles’ face.

“Yeah, so? Why are you telling me?”

“You’d whine if I told you to go home and let me do this alone and I’m not in the mood to argue.” He explained. “So if you’re not going to go home, we’ll check out the marina.”

Utterly shocked, Stiles didn’t immediately respond. He was stunned. Who the hell was standing in front of him, because it sure as hell wasn’t Derek Hale. Where did this newfound tolerance and ability to make wise decisions come from? Surely, the Derek that stood before him was a clone...or robot.

“I—I, wait… you’re not going to give me a bullshit lecture about how I should be back home, in bed, sleeping soundly into the night?” Stiles questioned cynically, working himself up to a smirk.

“Then go home. I don’t care.” Derek swung around and slid into the drivers’ seat of his car.

Stiles set his baseball bat down. “This—” he gestured around with his hands. “This is called banter, Derek. Y’know, like when two superheroes that are complete opposites have to team up and banter typically ensues. Get with the program.”

“We’re not superheroes.”

“ _Clearly_.” Stiles said flatly.

Derek shut the door to his car and started the engine. He prepared to turn back on the road and head back into town and for Stiles to follow behind. Before he could actually get anywhere, Stiles piped up again and held his hand out for Derek to stay where he was.

“Wait. What are you going to do about Matthew? I mean, he didn’t totally get on my bad side, so it’d be kinda shitty to just leave his body to rot in the woods for nobody to find.”

Derek shrugged. “Animals will.”

“Oh, fuck you, dude.” Stiles breathed. “Would you want somebody to leave you out in the woods like that?”

“Fine. I’ll stop by a payphone and tip off the police department. Just—meet me at the marina.” He shook his head and pulled back out onto the road to head back into town.

Stiles got back into his jeep and tossed his baseball bat into the backseat. He knew what he was supposed to do. That was, head to the marina. That thought continued to float around in the back of his mind as he followed closely behind the glaring red tail lights of Derek’s Camaro.

The thing that genuinely pressed on throughout his mind was the fact that he was back to working with Derek. Despite the previous disagreement that went down back at the loft between Stiles and the sweat monster, Derek Hale, things seemed to have smoothed over. It was odd. Stiles couldn’t completely get a reading on Derek. The man was difficult to understand. His motives were typically clear, but he just blatantly went about things the wrong way about ninety-five percent of the time.

There were days where Derek didn’t honestly seem to mind the extra help for finding Erica and Boyd. But then again, Derek could constantly go on about how he wanted to do things by himself and how it was very dangerous for anybody else to get themselves involved. Stiles couldn’t figure out why Derek was always so willing to kick his own support to the curb with nasty remarks and a smug attitude. It was like he had forgot how to be part of a team.

But the attitude… _ugh_ , the attitude.

That was what Stiles deemed to be one of the biggest problems for the resident alpha werewolf. Derek so clearly believed that he knew everything and that he had all of the tools—those that nobody else had—to find out the information to whatever he wanted to know. And sure, Derek was smart and tough, but he wasn’t the best out there.

The whole, ‘I’m better than you’, ‘I know more than you’, and the terrible, ‘I work better by myself’ bullshit would be entirely impossible to deal with…if it wasn’t such a captivating and charming look on Derek. The bold-headed arrogance was weird because it wasn’t anywhere close to Jackson’s level. Derek’s arrogance wasn’t as strong and it seemed to be more of a security blanket.


	6. Armed With Three Pairs of Glowing Eyes and an Animal Mask

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The police reports eventually lead to something interesting...which leads to an even more interesting plan for Stiles and the others.

The Beacon Hills Marina ended up being a total bust, as were all of the other locations that Derek and the others had spent their time searching over the course of several days.

After finding Matthew’s body, the gang decided to start investigating most of the locations of their map throughout the night, as opposed to during the afternoon. It was easier to do, seeing as how there were fewer scents to keep track of during the night. Not only that, but Stiles was worried that people would eventually see him and report his whereabouts back to his father. Switching the search time to the late hours of the night allowed them all to lurk around abandoned areas without drawing any sort of unwanted attention to themselves for looking suspicious.

The days seemed to drag on and yet there wasn’t any sort of progress made. They hadn’t picked up any promising scents. They hadn’t crossed paths with any other vengeful alphas that also happened to be hunting down the alpha pack. Additionally, there still wasn’t any sort of word from the actual alpha pack. It was as if the days were just boring repeats of one another.

Derek would frequently drive out to the Beacon Hills Preserve and see if there were any new threatening works of art painted on the remains of his house, but to no such luck. It seemed as if the alpha pack had only dropped into town to steal away Derek’s betas. Was that it? Was that their ultimate goal? Were they just kidnapping betas for some unknown reason? It didn’t make sense. There was something more in the works, something deeper down in the shadows, but it was impossible to piece together.

The last Thursday of June eventually rolled around and Stiles geared up for an exceptionally long weekend. As the sheriff of Beacon County, Stiles’ father was required to head down to Sacramento, California for a conference. The conferences were monthly—typically set sometime on the last week of the month—and lasted through the weekend. The drive from Beacon Hills to Sacramento was a nasty six hours in length, but it was mandatory and Stiles was ecstatic.

The fact that his father would be gone by Friday afternoon and wouldn’t return until late Sunday night meant that Stiles had the entire weekend to help search for Erica and Boyd. And unlike the times where his father was actually at home, Stiles knew that he’d be able to sneak out at night without having to get back home before his father got up for work. The late night searching would ease by uninterrupted. Although, it did mean that Stiles would have to successfully cut out his time with Scott…

It was around six o’clock, Thursday night. Stiles was at Derek’s loft—laid back on the couch, lazily reading through a new stack of police reports. His eyes stung and felt bruised, as if he had been punched. He hadn’t, though. He was just unbelievably tired and his eyes needed a good rest.

Derek and Isaac were over in the middle of the loft, dancing around the cement floor with a mix of punches and kicks getting served around as part of their crazed training regimen. Derek was by no means a great fighter, as proved by all of the times that Stiles witnessed Derek getting his ass handed to him. However, he managed to dodge and block all of Isaac’s attacks, which pushing back a couple punches of his own.

“You guys are extremely lucky that these walls are concrete and brick…and that you have the entire floor to yourselves.” Stiles said. “With all of this goddamn noise, your neighbors would think that you’re sex addicts.”

It came out sounding a little angrier than Stiles had intended for it to sound, but he couldn’t help it. He was pretty exhausted and his patience had dwindled down to nothing after having to listen to Derek and Isaac duel with each other for a couple hours. The constant sound was deafening, annoying, and distracting as hell. The outlook of Stiles getting the sound of Derek’s grunts out of his head looked incredibly bleak.

“I’m sorry if the sound of my pain is an inconvenience to you.” Isaac breathed heavily. Even his werewolf stamina was beginning to take a hit.

“Yeah, if you could just...I don’t know...fight _better_. That’d be great.” Stiles mocked.

“Oh, I see. Because you can do bett—”

“Hey... _hey_! Wait. I think I actually finally found something important!” Stiles shouted enthusiastically, jumping up from the couch with a couple pieces of paper held up in his hand.

Derek’s attention immediately shifted from his training exercise with Isaac onto Stiles and the piece of paper that he held in his hand like a torch of gold. He tried not to get his hopes up, because, _well_...it was Stiles and nothing Stiles said could be held to the standard of seriousness without evidence. But Stiles sounded serious and he looked it, as well. And even if what Stiles held in his hand was something small, it was at least something—something that would help find Erica and Boyd.

“What is it?” Derek tried not to sound desperate as he rushed over to Stiles’ side.

“These are reports of jewelry store robberies that happened here in Beacon Hills over the past couple weeks. The first one happened—uh—‘In the late hours on June 21st, 2011’.” Stiles read from the report. “That was the day we found Matthew’s body, remember?”

Derek’s face fell into utter displeasure. “A jewelry store robbery?” He asked, completely void of enthusiasm.

“Okay, wait. I wasn’t finished, you impatient asshole.” Stiles cleared his throat. “While the first report is a dud, the second robbery happened just last night. The jewelry store was robbed around closing time and only a few rare stones were stolen. This time, the manager saw the thief and later described him as being a giant brute of a man with _glowing red eyes_ …”

“An alpha.” Isaac tuned in.

“Does it say what stones were taken?” Derek asked.

“Uh, yeah…” Stiles paused, skimming down the page of the police report. “Yeah, it says right here:   _Moonstone_. Does that mean anything?”

Derek nodded slowly. “Moonstones are rare stones that are known to affect werewolves in an array of various ways. Enhance powers...weaken powers...it depends on the type and the size of the stone.”

Stiles slumped back down onto the couch, crossing his arms. “ _Perfect._ ” He huffed sarcastically.

“Tonight we’re getting into that jewelry store. The scent of that alpha will be embedded within the space of that store and I need it.” Derek explained.

Stiles hopped up from the couch for the second time. “Are you serious? Don’t you know that it’s bad to return to the scene of a crime? That’s when you get caught. No doubt they’ve already invested in some new surveillance cameras and any other measures of security that they think will protect them from beasts of the night.”

“We’re not returning to the scene of a crime since we aren’t the ones who committed it.”

“Yeah, well I think you’re going to have a fun time explaining that to the manager since you are the epitome of a hulking brute of a man with glowing red eyes, Derek.”

“This is our chance to find Erica and Boyd and to put an end to all of this.”

Derek was crazed, but tenacious. Breaking into a very _recently_ burglarized store wasn’t the smartest of ideas, but he was right when he said that it was a chance to find Erica and Boyd and be done with the whole alpha pack wild goose chase.

The only problem would be trying to get into the jewelry store without getting caught. There was no information regarding how late the store’s owner stuck around, or if there were security cameras, lasers, or guards. Without the knowledge, they’d walk into the situation blind with a high risk of getting arrested.

Derek and Isaac began to chatter amongst themselves while Stiles retreated into his own mind for a moment. If they were going to break into a jewelry store, there was no chance that Derek would be the one to devise the plan. The same went for both Peter and Isaac. Derek would probably opt to crash through one of the store’s exterior walls, while Peter and Isaac would elect to sit back and watch it happen.

“If we’re actually going to do this, then we make a game-plan.” Stiles interrupted, drawing both Derek and Isaac back to his presence.

Stiles walked back over to the couch and collected all of the loose pieces of police report papers. He stuffed them inside of his backpack and readied himself to head back home. It was getting late and he still hadn’t had dinner. He figured that he’d head back home, get something to eat, and then think up some sort of brilliant plan to bring back to the loft.

“You’re leaving?” Derek asked.

“I’ll piece together a plan and bring it with me when I come back later tonight after my dad’s gone to sleep.” Stiles slipped on his backpack. “Seeing as how I’m the genius of this little group, I can’t go on and let you guys be the ones to think up a plan.” He smirked and walked past the both of them.

The two werewolves didn’t say anything. Instead, they just let Stiles quietly leave with a smug smirk still painted across his face. Whether or not they chose to stay silent because they had nothing left to say or because they actually agreed that Stiles was the “genius” of the group…that was debatable.

About a quarter to midnight, Stiles pulled into the parking lot of Derek’s building and parked. He strode into the lobby wearing all black, holding a large paper bag in one of his hands. He was anxious, seeing as how he didn’t know how well the whole “break-in” would wash over. He hoped for the best, but who knew?

When Stiles got to the door of the loft, Isaac was the one who slid the door open to let him in. Stiles eagerly waltzed in and found his eyes immediately tacked to where Derek stood at the far end of the loft—near the bed—vigorously rubbing at his hair with a towel.

Derek had just gotten out of the shower and obviously loved to make use of the available time to dry his hair. He rubbed at it for a couple minutes at least. He had on a simple pair of black jeans and a black long-sleeved Henley, which was sticking to all of the wondrous shapes of his torso due to the lingering moisture on his skin. It was good that he was also wearing all black, because Stiles didn’t want to seem like the odd man out.

“What’s in the bag?” A voice casted out from in the direction of the spiral staircase—It was Peter.

“Y’know, I was actually envisioning this whole ‘jewelry store thing’ to be more of threesome. So, you can go back to wherever you came from...unless you live under those fucking stairs.” Stiles bit back.

Stiles laughed to himself and settled near the coffee table of the loft where he set the paper bag on top of it. As the three werewolves looked on in curiosity, Stiles reached down into the bag and pulled out three plastic face-masks. All of the masks were made to look like different animals. One was a fox, one was a skunk, and one was a Cocker Spaniel puppy.

“No break-in is complete without the proper protection.” Stiles snorted. “ _Masks_.” He tossed the skunk mask over to Isaac and tossed the puppy one to Derek.

Isaac started down at the mask in his hands, skeptically. “Is this supposed some sort of insult?”

“What? Skunks are _beautiful_ creatures…”

“I’m not wearing this.” Derek grumbled as he threw his towel down to the ground.

“And what if the security cameras get a clean shot of your face? How does getting taken down to the Sheriff’s station sound, Derek? You’ve been there before. I can’t imagine it being a fun experience.”

“Do you see these?” Derek pointed at his own eyes, letting them simmer red. “They’re not very fond of being photographed. They tend to send back a nasty glare.”

“You’re such a buzzkill. Jesus.” Stiles murmured. “Anyways, I didn’t just bring party gifts. According to Google Maps, there’s a back entrance to the store through an alleyway. That’ll probably be the best way to get into the store without getting caught.”

“I’m assuming that you don’t have any information on whether or not they have security guards or police posted outside of the store?” Derek asked.

“No. We’re practically going into this blind.” Stiles confirmed. “Anyhow, I suggest parking a block or so away from the building to avoid any potential witnesses from seeing our cars. Then we’ll walk up to the alleyway entrance. Easy, right?”

Derek gave a slight nod. “It'll have to do.” He ran his hand through his still damp hair.

The jewelry store was located in the downtown area of Beacon Hills, which just so happened to be extremely desolate in the late hours of the evening—much like the rest of Beacon Hills. There was no nightlife whatsoever in Beacon Hills, except for the gay club that was on the opposite side of town near the ironworks.

The vacantness of the area surrounding the store was a huge plus, nevertheless. It meant that things would go over smoother. They’d be able to get in and get out without being spotted by any pesky civilians. However, just to be extra careful, Derek and Stiles both parked their cars on the street located directly _behind_ the store, rather than on the main street itself.

Stiles parked directly behind Derek’s car. He switched off his headlights and jumped out of the jeep to meet the others, fox mask in hand.

“As far as I know, there aren’t any police officers posted around the area.” Stiles said, shutting the door of his jeep. He still looked around the empty streets just in case.

“How would you know that?” Isaac asked.

“I listen to the police radio frequency from time-to-time. Mainly just to see if anything outrageously bad is happening. It seems like tonight is pretty damn quiet, though. There aren’t any police units stationed within a good five miles of here.”

Derek faced around from the other three and cleverly scanned the area with his senses. He couldn’t smell any strong exhaust fumes from any other motor vehicle, other than his and Stiles’. It meant that there really weren’t any cop cars around the area. And by the smell of things, a car hadn’t actually driven down the road for the past hour.

“Listen up.” Derek said, turning around to face everybody else. “Once we sneak in through the back entrance that Stiles pointed out, we’ll hang around the store just long enough to get a solid smell of the alpha’s scent.”

Stiles huffed to himself, internally angry that he wouldn’t get to do anything cool...like sniff out the wrecked interior of a jewelry shop. He was basically just there to be the hot piece of ass, if he had to describe himself. But it was better than being the damsel in distress.

“Don’t. Touch. Anything.” Derek said, sternly. “We don’t need to leave behind fingerprints for investigators to find. Understood?”

Everybody nodded in agreement and the four man stealth team made their way down the sidewalk of the street until they got to the alleyway where the store’s back entrance was located. As they all surrounded the back door, Stiles slipped on his fox mask and waited for further advancement from one of the other three. Derek looked at him is disbelief and rolled his eyes.

“What?” Stiles asked, but was promptly shushed by Derek.

“There’s a guard inside. He’s sleeping, so stay quiet. We don’t need to wake him up.”

Derek gripped his hand around the door handle of the entrance and ripped the brass handle off just as gently and as quietly as he possibly could. The lock of the door was built into the door handle, which meant that not only was it _not_ burglar proof, but also that Derek knew exactly how to get rid of it. Stiles, however, immediately spoke up with concern in regards to Derek’s actions.

“You just touched something! What the hell did you just say about fingerprints?” He sneered with a whisper.

Derek whipped his head back and glared at Stiles. He held up the detached door handle as if saying, “look at this”, and then stuffed the handle into the pocket of his jeans with such a potent scent of sass. Well, it was one way to work around the rules…

The door seemed to open itself softly, as if pulled open by a gust of wind. Although, it was just because the door no longer had a functioning lock attached to it. Derek reached through the open space, around the door, and grabbed onto the other doorknob that was left dangling by loose screws. He put the second doorknob into his pocket and ushered everybody else inside of the building before following in their footsteps.

The store was dark, though the moonlight helped brighten the space to some extent. Despite the darkness, it was easy to see the destruction that the moonstone thief had done. There was broken glass everywhere, mostly from the glass display cases that held all the expensive jewelry. Everybody had to watch where the stepped in order to avoid stepping on that would alert the sleeping guard to their intrusion.

While Derek, Isaac, and Peter roamed around the store and sniffed all that they could possibly sniff, Stiles remained pretty much still—watching the storefront window from the shadows. There wasn’t much he could do given his human status. But he was still a part of the team...if it could be called a team.

“I can’t smell anything.” Isaac whispered, moving his head from side-to-side, finding new spots in the open air to smell. “How come I can’t smell anythin—”

Isaac’s backside accidentally bumped into a tall, glass display podium—one that hadn’t been damaged in the first break-in. The display case toppled over onto the tiled floor with a loud crash, shattering the glass. His eyes went wide in shock, immediately fearing what his punishment would be for fucking up so horribly.  

Before anybody could even fully comprehend what had just happened, red lights began to flash throughout the room and a loud alarm began to blare out.

“DON’T MOVE!” A voice yelled out from the opposite side of the room, away from where Stiles and everybody else stood. It was the sleeping security guard who definitely wasn’t sleeping any longer. Instead, he was standing and pointing a gun directly at Isaac, who remained still and closer to the guard than anybody else.

“How _infantile_ …” Peter snarled.

“What a smart idea. Insult the man that’s holding a gun to us.” Stiles whispered towards where Peter stood beside him.

“BE QUIET!” The security guard shouted, training his gun towards Stiles and Peter. “YOU WILL STAY WHERE YOU ARE UNTIL BACKUP ARRIVES!”

Nobody had a clue on what to do. Each of them knew that they had to get out of the store before backup arrived. If they got caught, Stiles would have to figure out how to explain to his father why he was caught breaking into a previously robbed jewelry store with three glowing eyed men. And knowing how the Beacon Hills police operated, they’d arrive at the store within the next five minutes.

Everybody remained just as still as they could possibly manage, when all of a sudden; Isaac lunged towards the backdoor in an attempt to escape. Two gunshots rang out with additional cries of pain from Isaac. He had been shot in the back by both bullets and had fallen down to the ground. He was lucky enough to avoid falling down into the shattered glass from the displays.

With quick thinking and cover from the distraction of Isaac getting shot, Derek reached into his pocket and pulled out the broken doorknob. With precision, he aimed and threw the metal knob at the security guard—striking him square in the forehead and rendering him unconscious.

“Go! Get him to the car!” Derek shouted, motioning for everybody else to clear out and get to safety.

While everybody else cleared out of the store, Derek rushed over to the security guard and picked up the metal doorknob that he had used to render the man unconscious. It was riddled with his fingerprints, which meant that he couldn’t leave it behind as evidence. The last thing that he wanted to do was get arrested and questioned by Stiles’ father.

Peter and the others hurried to the car. He carried Isaac in his arms, but eventually realized that he didn’t have a way to get into the car. Derek was the one with the keys and it was locked.

“I don’t have the keys. Derek is the one—”

The chipper beep of Derek’s Camaro sounded and the doors unlocked. Peter swung around to find Derek barreling towards him with the car’s remote in his hand. He had been the one to unlock the doors.

Derek stopped himself from his full throttle rush towards the car, just in time to avoid colliding with Peter. While Stiles looked out into the distance in search for any visible cop cars, Derek helped lay Isaac down in the backseat of the car.

In the distance, past Stiles’ range of hearing, Derek could hear the roaring sound of several cop cars and their sirens racing towards the jewelry store. They would be caught if they attempted to drive away. The cops were coming in all directions, including the street that they had decided to park their cars on.

“Get in. Everybody get in and keep your heads down.” Derek commanded, pulling Stiles by the back of his shirt and tossing him into the backseat along with Isaac.

Everybody kept their heads down as the police cruisers rushed to the scene and parked outside of the alleyway. Derek, Stiles, and Peter all watched closely from the tinted windshield as the police officers rushed out of their cars and into the dark alleyway—guns drawn. They waited for a moment and let the police settle inside of the jewelry store in search of the intruders that they wouldn’t find.

“Stiles... _as quickly as you can_...get into your jeep, make a U-turn, and drive away.” Derek said. “ _Go!_ ”.

Stiles ripped off his mask and crawled out of the Camaro from where he had been practically thrown on top of Isaac. Carefully, he got into the driver’s seat of his jeep like Derek had instructed. He put the key in the ignition and cringed as he turned it and fired up the engine. He hoped that it wasn’t too loud or else he ran the possibility of grabbing the attention of the police officers. That would only create more trouble.

To his satisfaction, the police officers had been so easily distracted with trying to find whoever had broken into the jewelry store that they hadn’t even bothered to check out the sound of two separate car engines being turned on. Everybody had gotten away scot-free, all except for Isaac who had taken two bullets in the back because the stupid trigger happy security.

The security guard should have just kept sleeping. He honestly didn’t even have that big of a reason to shoot. He probably just wanted to look like the big hero of the day. Ultimately, the joke was on him. Stiles and everybody else got away and he’d have to attempt to sound sane whilst describing the attack of three glowing eyed men and a fox mask wearing lunatic.

Stiles had personally elected to drive over to Derek’s loft rather than go home. He wanted to know if Derek had been successful in getting a good scent to search after...and also if Isaac was okay. Stiles figured that that was important too…

When they all had arrived at the loft, Peter left to go back to wherever he lived—probably in some fancy house on the hill. He obviously didn’t give a flying fuck about the alpha pack member’s scent being left behind in the jewelry store. He probably just tagged along because he had nothing better to do than be undoubtedly suspicious.

Meanwhile, Derek carried Isaac all the way up to the loft—never setting him down to stand for even a moment; despite Isaac’s mantra of “I’m fine”. It was extremely apparent that Derek really did care about Isaac’s well-being, even if he was pretty harsh on him during training. It was a nice side of Derek to see.

Stiles waited in the living room space of the loft while Derek tended to Isaac’s wounds in Isaac’s bedroom down the hall. He would hear occasional shouts of pain, probably as Derek dug into Isaac’s wound tracks with tweezers to get the bullets out. Eventually, the shouts subsided and Derek reappeared in the main quarters by himself.

“The screaming stopped.” Stiles said, rubbing at the back of his neck. “You didn’t kill him for knocking over that display case, did you?”

“It’s late. He’s going to sleep off the ache from the bullet wounds.” Derek walked over to where Stiles stood. “He’s lucky. I’ve been shot with way worse.”

“Oh, I know. Don’t even remind me of that one time when you got shot with that crazy magic bullet and I almost sawed off your arm.” Stiles snickered.

Derek did something _weird_ with his lips. It looked sort of like a small smile at the corner of his lips, but it wasn’t. There was _no_ way that Derek had just smiled. _Half-smiled_. Nope. No way…but he did...until his face settled back to its normal setting of handsome seriousness.

Stiles opened his mouth to voice his utter confusion, but then Derek’s hand was right at the side of his face—softly ghosting above the skin of his cheek—thus throwing Stiles down into even further confusion.

“Does that hurt?” Derek asked, bringing his hand away from Stiles’ face.

Stiles had absolutely no idea what the hell Derek was even talking about. He was still stuck in a momentary buffering session while he tried to make sense of why the hairs on the back of his neck stood up at Derek’s slight touch. But then he raised his own hand up to his face and touched the area of skin that Derek hadn’t quite made full contact with.

He pressed down on the area of this skin, only to feel a surge of soreness spread across the rest of his cheek. It kind of felt like a pimple was going to surface, but it didn’t make sense as to why Derek would show concern for a pimple. That’s because it wasn’t. It was a small scrape and bruise—a small one right below his cheek bone that was beginning to darken slightly in color.

“It’s just a bruise. Isaac fell into me when he tried to dash out of the jewelry store.” Stiles rubbed at his cheek. “You’re in a very caring mood tonight. Are you feeling okay? You don’t have some sort of werewolf fever brought on by a werewolf flu or something, right?”

“I’m not a cold-hearted monster like you think.”

“Hey!” Stiles shouted, but drew down to a wounded whimper. “I don’t—I didn’t say that. It’s just that you don’t typically do this kind of thing. You’re not usually this…concerned.”

“Yes, I’ve been searching for Erica and Boyd over the past month because I thought it’d be a fun thing to do in my spare time.” Derek huffed, crossing his arms.

Stiles felt like he deserved that one. He hadn’t tried to come across so insulting, but it wasn’t like he was the master at putting together what he wanted to say. All he was trying to say was that over the past months of knowing Derek, the dude definitely didn’t seem to be the one to let his _“I care”_ freak flag fly.

“Okay, fine. I worded that in poor taste. I didn’t mean it that way…” Stiles explained, using that as his apology. “Anyways…did you manage to get a scent from the alpha in the jewelry store?”

He looked over to Derek with a gleam of hopefulness in his own eyes, but he could already sense a change in the energy that radiated off of Derek. There was a change in stance. The tight grip of his crossed arms got tighter. The answer to the posed question seemed to appear within the sharp lines of his eyebrows and clenched jaw. And unfortunately, the answer didn’t seem like it’d be good.

“I did.” Derek confirmed unenthusiastically. “But there’s something wrong with it. It’s like the scent is twisting itself inside of my head. It’s rapidly switching between a combination of different scents and I can’t grab hold of a single one to track.”

“Like a strobe-light of scents inside of your memory?” Stiles pried. “What would cause that?”

“I don’t know. This has never happened before but it’s only happening with _that_ scent in particular.” Derek tugged tirelessly at his hair. “I can smell you. I can smell Isaac. I can smell the garbage rotting downstairs in the dumpsters on the street. The scent of this alpha, though...it’s not normal.”

Stiles exhaled loudly.

They were stuck at another wall—another thing that completely hindered them from saving Erica and Boyd from wherever they were being kept. Stiles began to wonder if they were even captured in the first place. Maybe the alpha pack didn’t have them. Maybe they were safe. Maybe they were off somewhere beautiful like a tropical island while Derek and the gang searched for the unsearchable.

“Do you think you could untangle the scents?”

Derek didn’t say anything. He stood silent, mentally going over what he wanted to do—what he felt like doing. “No, and we still have nothing. And they still have Erica and Boyd.”

“Okay, but the alphas are getting bolder with their actions.” Stiles replied, dismissing his previous question about whether or not Derek could untangle the scents. “I mean, ransacking a jewelry store? My dad always says that _that’s_ when criminals get caught. When they get bold, cut corners, forget to cover their tracks, get sloppy...they screw up and that’s when we’ll get them.”

“What if it’s too late?”

Stiles didn’t know what to say. He thought to say, “It won’t be”, but he didn’t know that for certain. It was nothing but hopeful air to blow in Derek’s face. For all he knew, it could be too late. By the time the alpha pack finally dropped a clue as to their whereabouts, Erica and Boyd could already be dead. Stiles knew that but he didn’t want to say that, even though Derek was pretty smart and probably had the same thought cooking in his brain. Nevertheless, it wasn’t something that Derek should have to hear twice.

“My dad—” Stiles paused, still debating on whether to reassure Derek that Erica and Boyd would be found safely, or just continue with what he was going to say. He chose the latter. “—he’s leaving in the morning for a conference that’ll last through the weekend. I’ll have extra time to help search for Erica and Boyd. Maybe we’ll be able to close the gap between us and the alphas. This isn’t over.”

Derek gave a slight nod in acknowledgment to Stiles’ words, but refused to speak. Instead, he stared at the cement floors of the loft and let Stiles breeze past him to exit the loft. He wanted to be alone with his own thoughts.


	7. Ode to Danny Mahealani

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Presented with trouble from their late-night shenanigans, Stiles turns to the only person he knows with the skills to save the day.

Stiles had gotten back home pretty late after breaking into the jewelry store, but he didn’t get to sleep in for as long as he would have liked. He was awoken from his slumber by the sound of his father rushing around and clambering around in some of the hall closets. He was looking for his suitcase since he would be required to head out to Sacramento eventually. Stiles wanted to bury his head back into his pillow, but he didn’t want to miss the chance to say goodbye to his dad.

Stiles took his time down the staircase—making sure not to accidentally trip since he was still extremely tired. He found his father in the kitchen, wearing normal clothes instead of his uniform, and pouring himself a cup of coffee as he talked on his cell phone. From the sound of the conversation, it sounded like police business.

As John continued to speak on the phone, Stiles took a seat at the small breakfast table—trying to keep himself awake. Normally, he’d try his best to listen in to the conversation that his father was having, but he was too tired to even try. It probably wasn’t anything too interesting, anyways.

After several minutes, Stiles was drifting in and out of consciousness and John finally ended his phone conversation. He set his phone down on the kitchen counter.

“I don’t know what it is about jewelry stores lately, but the same one has been broken into twice over the past couple days.” John said, taking a sip of his coffee.

Stiles immediately perked up when he heard the words, “jewelry store”. It was obvious that his dad was talking about the Beacon Hills jewelry store that the alphas had destroyed in their quest for a moonstone. There weren’t too many stores of that nature in Beacon Hills, except at the local mall. However, there was only one store in town that had been hit twice over the past couple days.

“Maybe people have a sudden urge to steal jewelry.” Stiles said, trying to figure out how he could potentially get new information out of his father. “Why do you think they’re doing it?”

John shrugged. “Nothing was stolen this time except for a couple doorknobs. Not to mention that the break-in last night was executed by a group, rather than one man. Three glowing-eyed men and one wearing a fox mask.” He scoffed in disbelief.

Stiles almost exploded with hysterical laughter, but he kept his composure. Just hearing his father explain the crime sounded beyond bizarre—thus hilarious. Nobody in their right mind would break into a jewelry store while wearing a fox mask, only to steal a doorknob. Well, except for Derek and his “late-night posse”. It was such an unusual crime, that he could easily see how it could be extremely confusing to his father and the rest of the Beacon Hills Police Department.

“Any luck with finding leads? Any suspects or evidence?” Stiles asked, hopeful that his father would have some information about the first robbery to spill. That was the one with the major theft involved, plus it was the one could help find Erica and Boyd.

To Stiles’ pleasure, John nodded. “The security guard last night shot one of the trespassers. He’s not supposed to use deadly force, but I suppose the _glowing eyes_ spooked him. Anyways, we’re looking into the local hospitals to see if anybody with recent gunshot wounds turns up.”

Stiles was only met with disappointment. If that was the only lead that the Beacon Hills Police Department had, then finding the alpha who stole the moonstones was a total bust. Isaac had been shot, yes. But he was a werewolf with the ability to heal wounds. He wouldn’t be found at any hospital.

“However—” John spoke up again. “—the forensics team was able to gather up some of the blood from the guy who bled out after being shot. If we’re lucky, we’ll get a match to somebody.” He explained.

_Shit._

The wind had been practically taken out of Stiles’ lungs. The blood. Isaac’s blood. They had been in such a rush to get back to the loft without getting caught by the police, that they had completely disregarded the fact that Isaac’s blood had been wasted on the jewelry store’s floor. If the blood samples were to be matched to Isaac, everything would be over.

Stiles was pretty sure that his face momentarily paled in terror, but his father hadn’t noticed. He was too busy rinsing out his used coffee mug in the sink to pay attention to the sounds of his son’s inner screams. Stiles had to think of something to say, though. He had to calm his nerves. He had to know how much time he had until Isaac and everybody else—including himself—would be caught.

“S—so.” Stiles started off nervously. “How long do you think it’ll take for those blood results to get back? Those jewelry store bandits could strike again if they’re not caught.”

“Not sure. It’ll probably be sometime his afternoon. I won’t be around to hear the results, anyhow.” John said, walking up to where Stiles was sitting. He held out his arms—expecting a hug—which confused Stiles until he realized that his father had to leave for Sacramento.

“Oh.” Stiles stood up and hugged his father goodbye.

“I’ll see you in a couple days.” John said. “Stay out of trouble. No wild parties. No staying out super late. No turning this place into a pig-pen. Understood?”

Stiles retracted from the hug and agreed, even though he couldn’t promise anything. He wasn’t sure about partying, but _not_ staying out super late wasn’t even an option. Plus, not turning the house into a pig-pen would totally not be his fault. That’s just how seventeen year olds lived.

John grabbed his suitcase that was by the front door and grabbed his car keys off of the wall-mounted hook. He waved goodbye to Stiles and left, shutting the front door behind himself. Stiles waited with complete stillness until he heard the sound of his father’s car pull out of the driveway, only to dash upstairs to call Derek and alert him to the urgent news.

As Stiles’ phone continued to ring, he paced around his bedroom—vocalizing his desire for Derek to hurry up and pick up the phone. This was not the time for Derek to not answer his phone. Sure, Derek wasn’t a very talkative person. And sure, he sounded even more socially constipated on the phone than he did in real life, but it was important.

“What is it?” Derek answered.

“Derek, listen.” Stiles started, biting at his fingernails. “My dad just told me that the forensic lab collected some of Isaac’s blood from the jewelry store shooting last night. If the blood comes back as a match to Isaac, he’s fucked... _we’re fucked_.”

“Doesn’t your DNA already have to be in their system to come back as a match to one of their samples?” Derek asked. It took Stiles by surprise because he hadn’t thought of that.

“Well...ask Isaac if he’s ever done anything to get his DNA into their database.” Stiles demanded impatiently. “And put it on speakerphone so I can hear his answer.”

Stiles could hear Derek’s very obvious, very loud huff of annoyance as he drew the phone away from his own ear and turned it on speakerphone. He could hear Derek’s harsh footsteps on the cement of the loft’s floor as he made his way to Isaac’s bedroom. At the same time, he could hear Derek give an otherwise _icy_ retelling of how Isaac’s blood was found at the crime scene of the jewelry store and how he needed to know if the police would be able to match it to DNA samples in their database.

Isaac’s immediate response was “no” and the nerves in Stiles’ stomach briefly unclenched with relief. Nut then Isaac spoke again.

“No, wait. It might.” Isaac said. “When my brother and I were little, our mother put us through some DNA kit thing just in case we ever got kidnapped or something. She was really over protective.”

“Did you hear that? What are we supposed to do now?” Derek snarled. “I have to get him out of town. I have to—”

“Wait...wait…” Stiles murmured. “Actually, I think I might have a plan to fix this. Just...give me a couple hours and I’ll tell you guys to skip town if my plan blows up in my face. Okay? Don’t do anything until I tell you what to do.”

He had a plan half-cooked in his mind. Given, it was a crazy one—as most of his plans were. Hell, even Stiles was surprised as to how quickly his brain came up with the new plan. It was illegal and depended totally on the help of somebody else, but it could potentially work despite the fact that there was no guarantee of it being successful. He knew that he had to at least give it a shot.

“Stiles—” Derek shouted, but it was too late. Stiles had already disconnected the call, leaving Derek alone without any sort of idea of the plan that Stiles was going to attempt. That alone made Derek even more frustrated. He hated being alone in the dark. Well...he hated being _figuratively_ left alone in the dark.

After ending his conversation with Derek, Stiles went directly into the contacts of his phone and scrolled down the one person that he knew could probably help. In fact, his plan depended almost entirely on this person, considering that this person was just about the smartest, tech-savvy person that Stiles knew.

Danny Mahealani—the seventeen year old hacking genius that Stiles was pretty sure could be the only person in Beacon Hills to effectively trash Isaac’s blood results without getting caught. The only problem was that Danny and Stiles weren’t the best of friends, even though Danny came in pretty handy a few months prior with another tech-related problem.

Stiles sent him a quick text message and offered Danny fifty dollars if he could get over to Stiles’ residence within the next fifteen minutes to help with a problem. However, Stiles didn’t even bother to jump into details related to what he wanted Danny to do. That would have been too risky. Danny would have easily said no.

Danny’s response came back a few minutes later, and it read: “This isn’t how you get laid, Stiles.”

“It’s actually insulting that you think I’d pay for somebody to have sex with me. Secondly, can you please just get over here and help me out? It’s practically free money. Also, bring your laptop.”

“Fine.” Danny responded.

Stiles tossed his phone onto his bed and rushed over to his dresser. He changed into an outfit that wasn’t too beat up. It looked nice and somewhat appeasing. He figured that since he was able to persuade Danny into doing his dirty work by flaunting Derek’s attractiveness around, he could at least try his hand at looking somewhat presentable. Perhaps it was possible to score points with Danny by using his own looks this time around.

By the time Stiles finished up with brushing his teeth and combing his new, slightly longer hair, there was a knock downstairs at the front door. Stiles rushed down to answer it, laughing to himself at how fast Danny arrived. He must have been extremely excited about the fifty dollars reward.

Stiles swung open the door with a cocked eyebrow and a dopey smile on his face. “Whaaaaat’s uuuuuup” he said with an exaggerated chipper tone. But his face fell flat in surprise when he found Derek standing on his doorstep.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Stiles asked. Derek ignored him and made his way into the house, so Stiles rolled his eyes and shut the door behind him. “Did you seriously speed over here? You live twenty miles away and I literally just off the phone with you and Isaac like…eleven minutes ago.”

“What exactly is your plan?” Derek crossed his arms. He gave a quick once over of Stiles’ wardrobe. The somewhat fresher looking attire. The smell of fresh soap. The gel product in his hair. The cheerful greeting at the door. “Were you expecting somebody else?” He quickly asked.

Stiles ran his hand through his hair and pat down any loose strands down afterwards. “Actually, yes…that’s part of my plan. So, if you could just—”

Another knock rapped against the front door, interrupting the conversation between Derek and Stiles. Derek had no idea who it was, but as Stiles began to shove him off to the staircase, urging him to go to his bedroom, Derek figured that it was somebody important.

When Derek finally got himself out of sight, Stiles opened the door. This time, he didn’t bother with the overly enthusiastic welcome. He just smiled instead and hoped that Danny would stop looking so charmingly smug.

“You started growing your hair out?” Danny asked.

“Yeah, yeah…but now I have to put gel in it every morning and spend a couple minutes brushing it…do you like it?” Stiles asked. He tried to sound casual, but Danny just raised an eyebrow and nodded gently.

“It’s nice.” Danny said.

“So, about that favor I need you to help me with…my friend got into a little trouble and I need your help to get him out of it.”

“Define trouble.”

Stiles led Danny up to his bedroom and told him about how his “friend” was involved in one of the jewelry store robberies and how his blood was going to get tested against DNA profiles. He explained how he needed Danny’s expert hacking skills in order to get rid of the blood tests that were probably sitting in the forensics labs somewhere in Beacon Hills.

As Stiles explained his story, Danny’s facial expressions looked somewhere between a mix of being completely confused and also that what Stiles was saying sounded like the funniest thing that he had ever heard. Still, he couldn’t seem to wrap his head around the fact that Stiles enjoyed doing illegal things. Better yet, he couldn’t believe that Stiles always needed somebody to do illegal things for him.

“You are aware of the legality of what you’re asking me to do, right?” Danny asked. “There is absolutely _nothing_ legal about this, Stiles. And this won’t be a slap on the wrist. This is a prison sentence.”

“So, are you saying that you can’t do it? Maybe you aren't as talented as I thought.” Stiles teased mockingly, walking through the threshold of his bedroom door as Danny followed behind.

Danny was about to come back with some form of a witty remark and perhaps even a suggestion for Stiles to stop getting himself involved with stupid things. However, he caught himself an eyeful of a figure that was standing on the opposite side of Stiles’ bedroom—looking out of the window.

The man was faced towards the window with his backside turned towards where Danny stood. But for what it was worth, the view was perfectly fine. The man was wearing clothes that fit nicely. He was silhouetted by the morning sunlight that streamed in through the window, but Danny could still see the man’s rippling back and arm muscles.

He was frozen for a moment; too busy looking at the man across the room to remember that Stiles was standing right next to him. Nevertheless, he snapped out of his haze when the man turned around to reveal himself as who Danny believed to be Stiles’ cousin— _Miguel_.

“Nope.” Danny said, turning to Stiles. He pulled him back towards the door. “You can’t just flaunt your cousin around every time you want my hacking skills. It’s wrong...in so many different ways.” He whispered seriously.

“I didn’t call him over here to seduce you.” Stiles whispered back, argumentatively. “He literally arrived a couple minutes before you did. It was unexpected. Secondly, I really just need you right now, okay? Please.”

Danny rubbed at his forehead, taking a moment to digest the situation. He glanced over to where Stiles’ desk was located and over to where “Miguel” stood like a sexy menace over by the window. Danny didn’t really feel like spending a couple hours hacking, but Stiles seemed extremely desperate. The fact that Stiles even said “please” also weighed positively on Danny’s shoulder.

Danny sighed. “Two-hundred.” He said, staring at Stiles.

“Two-hundred, what? _Dollars_? Are you fucking kidding?” Stiles asked.

“Two-hundred and….you let me do my laundry here for a while since my washing machine is broken.” Danny clarified.

It was a rip-off— _an outrageous rip-off_. However, Stiles knew that there wouldn’t be any other way to get Isaac out of the trouble that he had gotten himself into. Danny was the only person that he knew that could effectively save the day. Plus, Stiles figured that it could have been a more stingy demand. Danny could have asked for five-hundred dollars.

“Fine... _asshole_.” Stiles muttered, forcing a smile.

Danny smiled and took a seat at Stiles’ desk. He pulled out his own laptop from the leather carrying case that had been strapped across his broad chest. Danny fired up his computer and tapped patiently on the desk as it booted up. Stiles stood as his side and eagerly waited for something to happen.

“I don’t know how long it’ll take. It’s possible that they don’t have your friend’s blood sample tagged in an identifiable way. It’s possible that they’ve already run it through some sort of program. But one thing I know for certain is that they’ll have some tough security walls for me to chisel through without alerting them.”

“Well, I trust that you’re an expert at chiseling. So, just do what you do best.” Stiles gave Danny a reassuring grip on his shoulders. “And just try to do it as fast as you possibly can because this could mean life or death.”

For the next hour and a half, Danny clacked away at his keyboard—trying his best to do what Stiles would eventually pay for. Stiles spent the majority of the time wandering aimlessly around his bedroom, fooling around with the knobs of his dresser drawers and drawing faces into the dust that he hadn’t wiped off of his bedroom window.

Derek hadn’t left either. He decided to stay behind and wait for Danny to finish the job, too. However, he didn’t know Danny like Stiles did. He didn’t know who this kid was and if he’d actually be able to save Isaac’s ass. If he could manage it, that would be amazing. But Derek didn’t remain very hopeful and prepared for the worst.

As the time passed, Stiles and Derek grew more impatient. It was taking a long time and the forensics lab could have already processed the blood samples already. It was probably too late. Isaac was probably about to get arrested and carted off to jail for stealing a fucking door knob.

Derek lounged back in a chair near Stiles’ bed, while Stiles laid flat atop his bedsheets—letting his eyes droop shut. He was tired and waiting around for Danny was draining. Though, he knew that he probably shouldn’t complain considering the fact that Danny was legitimately the one doing all of the work.

“I managed to bypass the thickest part of their security, making sure to maneuver carefully so that they can’t find any trace somebody hacking into their system.” Danny explained, snapping Stiles back to awareness. “The rest of this should be pretty simple.”

“You’re a real-life superhero...” Stiles laughed with a yawn, sitting up off of his bed. “...and I’m starving from sitting around and doing all of this worrying. It’s almost lunch.”

“What did you have in mind?” Danny spun around in the desk chair to look at Stiles. “And just so you know, that question doesn’t insinuate that I’m about to pay for whatever you’re about to go pick up. You’re buying me lunch.”

“Hey, that wasn’t part of our deal.” Stiles said, lacking seriousness to his words. He stared at Danny for a moment, studying him, only to smile. “ _Fine_...tacos from Taco Palace. How’s that sound?”

Derek sat back and quietly observed as Stiles and Danny chatted about lunch. He couldn’t help but feel somewhat out of place. Being the silent little statue in the corner of the Stiles’ bedroom felt odd, even though Derek typically enjoyed keeping to the background and away from the activity of the world.

It wasn’t the same, though.

Derek had noticed almost immediately that there was a sort of lightness regarding the way that Stiles interacted with Danny. It was completely different than how his own interactions with Stiles ended up. Yes, Stiles was just as crude and snarky and animated as he always seemed to be, but it was different.

Stiles was different. He seemed like he genuinely enjoyed Danny’s company and presence. He didn’t seem to be tense and frustrated with having to speak with Danny and wait around for Danny’s progress with the hacking. It contrasted harshly with how Stiles treated Derek like a boss he didn’t like and didn’t really want to tolerate.

Stiles eventually grabbed a light coat from a coat hook on his wall and dashed to get some tacos for lunch, leaving Danny and Derek to stay behind.

While Danny remained glued to his computer screen—working as fast as he could—Derek was left with nothing to do. However, it wasn’t like Derek had really done anything productive for the past hour anyways. He eventually stood up from the chair that he had been sitting in and stretched his limbs—peering around Stiles’ room for something of moderate interest.

Nearly ten minutes passed without either of the two guys speaking a single word to one another—probably because of the fact that they were complete strangers to each other. Additionally, there wasn’t anything to really talk about. Derek wasn’t much of a conversation starter either. He wasn’t required to talk to Stiles’ friend, so he didn’t.

As the time crawled by, Derek grew tenser. He was worried that Stiles’ friend would be unsuccessful and that he’d eventually have to skip town with Isaac. That would probably be the outcome, anyways. That didn’t mean that it was the ideal outcome, though. Leaving town wouldn’t be a problem, but it would hinder his ability to find Erica and Boyd. That was the real problem.

“Do you visit Stiles often?” Danny spoke up. “Or do you only visit him when he nudges people into doing his illegal activities? Y’know, for his moral support. I mean, you were here the last time that Stiles needed help doing something almost as suspicious as this.”

Danny’s spontaneous decision to spark up a conversation caught Derek completely off-guard. So much so that he just responded with a simple, yet firm, “yes”. He didn’t even know to which of Danny’s questions his response was in regards to. Did he visit Stiles often or did he only visit him when Stiles was up to doing something illegal?”

“Stiles has actually been in most of my classes since the first grade. He never shuts up, but he’s never mentioned having an older cousin here in Beacon Hills.” Danny said, swiveling his chair around to face Derek.

“He’s a private person.” Derek replied, unsure if what he was saying was true or not. He didn’t know everything about Stiles, so he felt that he had to give answers for a little breathing room. He didn’t want to accidentally screw himself and get caught in a lie by Danny.

Danny just stared at Derek with incredible disbelief. He wore a frozen half smile on his face, wondering if _“Miguel”_ would care to elaborate on his answer. But he didn’t. He just stood there with a blank expression on his face, as if honestly expecting Danny to believe that Stiles was a private person.

“Okay…” Danny trailed off, turning back to his computer.

A few more minutes ticked by and the silence remained between Derek and Danny. There wasn’t anything more to talk about, considering that all Derek had to say consisted of unbelievable bullshit to hide truths. Meanwhile, Danny refused to believe such obvious bullshit.

Stiles returned home, barging back into his bedroom with a couple bags of tacos in his hands. “I didn’t know how many you guys would want to eat, so I got the party pack with twenty-six tacos. Any extras that you don’t consume go to me, okay?” He explained, setting the bags down onto the desk where Danny was working.

“Who the hell could finish off twenty-six tacos?”

“Me.” Stiles confirmed, proudly.

“You’re insane.” Danny snickered. “Did you remember the sauce?”

Stiles reached into one of the bags and pulled out a handful of colorful, ridiculously named sauce packets. “Cool breeze, Stuffy Coat, Summer’s Day, Metal Slide in the Sun, and Tongue Melter.” He listed off the names and dropped them down over the bags of tacos. “Plus, how am I the insane one? You’re committing a federal crime for me.”

“Yeah, well…” Danny trailed off, finishing off a couple keystrokes before clasping his hands together in triumph. “Your criminal buddy’s blood samples have been conveniently tossed aside for complete bio-hazard disposal. They’ll never even reach the processing lab. And before anybody notices that something’s amiss, it’ll be too late to recover any untainted DNA evidence. Your friend is free.”

As Danny shut his laptop closed and placed it back into his leather carrying case, Stiles looked over to Derek with a look of relief on his face. Derek looked pretty relieved too. Well... _less_ emotionally constipated than usual. It was pretty disappointing, to say the least. Stiles expected to see a little more emotion, considering the fact that they had just dodged a bullet.

“You…are the absolute best. Have I ever told you how much of a genius you are?” Stiles said. He placed his hand on Danny’s shoulder and started to walk him towards the bedroom door—sneakily trying to guide Danny out of the house before the subject of payment was brought up.

The two of them were almost out of the bedroom before Danny smiled and turned around to face Stiles, crossing his arms. “Nice try, but I didn’t do all of that for free. I expect two-hundred….and the use of your washing machine.”

Stiles sighed loudly. “Fine. You’ll get your money…eventually. I don’t just have two-hundred dollars lying around, but I promise I’ll get it to you. Someday.”

“Fair enough.”


	8. The Hunt for the Sawmill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Following Derek's lead amounts to some bad tempers.

Stiles and the others worked through Friday, Saturday, and into the early morning of Sunday—barely taking time to get some sleep. Stiles was sure that he looked like a walking zombie, but the others looked perfectly fine. They didn’t have bags under their eyes because their damn werewolf powers prevented it, but they were definitely just as tired as Stiles was. The constant yawning and Derek’s extra-grumpy attitude was a dead giveaway.

The gang spent the time searching for Erica and Boyd in places that they hadn’t yet looked. It included the local garbage dump, a factory that specialized in producing plastic water bottles, an elementary school that had been abandoned back in 2008, and the wooded area around a small lake that was on the outskirts of the Beacon Hills Preserve.  

It was eight o’clock, Sunday morning. Stiles and the others had literally just finished a four hour search throughout the woods around the lake in the preserve. Of course, they hadn’t found Erica and Boyd, but at least they could scratch off another location from their map of places to look.

Stiles was pretty sure that he was just running on fumes, as was everybody else. However, following their search through the woods, they didn’t all head directly home. Instead, they stopped at a small breakfast diner in downtown Beacon Hills for some coffee. It had been Peter’s idea and everybody else had been too tired to argue and disagree. The coffee was very much needed, anyways.

The diner was small, but cozy. There were large glass windows alongside one of the walls, facing the direction of the early morning sun. It left the diner tinted with muted yellow sun. The strong smell of fresh coffee and toasted bagels loomed throughout the air. It was peaceful and almost made Stiles want to fall asleep right then and there.

The four guys all sat together at a booth in the back of the restaurant. Stiles and Isaac sat together on one side of the booth, while Derek and Peter remained directly across. The waitress had already come by—slightly wincing at the smell of trees and dirt that came drifting off of the guys’ bodies—and offered to bring them by a couples mugs of hot coffee.

Everybody remained quiet, taking in the silence of the non-busy diner. The only sound was the typical restaurant noise of glass cups and plates banging together in the kitchen. Stiles thought he might drift off if the coffee didn’t arrive soon, but he was quickly shot back to alertness when he spotted Lydia walk through the diner’s doors.

“ _Shit_.” Stiles whispered, placing a menu over his face. “It’s Lydia. What the hell is she doing here?”

Derek looked back towards the diner entrance and watched as Lydia walked up to the "to-go orders" corner of the front counter. She hadn’t even bothered to look towards the back of the room, where Stiles and everybody else was sitting. But if Lydia did notice them, then there was a possibility that she’d tell Scott and things would be ruined.

“Just—keep your guys’ heads down and don’t give her reason to look over here.” Stiles explained, standing up from the booth as quietly as he could. “I mean it.”

Derek tried to stop him with a forceful, whispered, “Stiles!”, but Stiles ignored him and quietly crept towards the front of the diner, hoping that Lydia wouldn’t turn around and notice him. Remaining quiet and nonchalant, Stiles squeezed his way out of the diner’s doors.

He figured that he’d wait inside of his jeep until left Lydia walked out. Then, he’d pretend as if he had just arrived at the diner to pick up some breakfast. It was a simple enough lie that he was pretty sure that he could get away with without Lydia becoming suspicious. So he waited until Lydia walked out of the diner with her “to-go” bag in hand, and then made a scene of jumping out of his jeep and slamming the door shut.

The sound of the jeep’s door getting slammed shut was enough to catch Lydia’s attention. But then Stiles realized that he could have probably just pretended to not even be there. “Stiles?” Lydia asked, walking over to meet Stiles. “I didn’t think you were an early morning person.”

“I’m not usually.” Stiles scratched at the back of his neck, trying not to look at Derek and the others through the window of the building “My dad’s out of town so I thought I’d make myself breakfast...or pick it up and say that I did. And according to this restaurant’s food, I’m a great cook.”

“That’s sad.” Lydia smiled. “Anyhow, you and Scott will be attending my Fourth of July party, right?"

Stiles nodded. He wasn’t sure where this invitation was coming from and why Lydia even wanted to invite him and Scott. “Wait, we are?” He asked hesitantly.

“Yes.” She replied, answering as if it was already common knowledge. “Make sure to wear patriotic colors or you’ll be turned away at the door. But none of those tacky flag print shirts.”

“Yeah, sure. We’ll be there.” Stiles eased. “What time should we arrive?”

“Eight o’clock.” Lydia said.

“ _Eight o’clock_. Got it.” Stiles repeated in confirmation. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the party.

Lydia smiled and strut away towards her own car. She put the bag of food in the passenger’s seat of the car and then got into the driver’s seat. Stiles watched from the curb as she backed out of the parking space and drove off down the road. He just needed to make sure that he didn’t have to worry about her walking back into the diner to find Stiles chatting amongst the rest of the guys.

Stiles wandered back inside to the table where Derek and the others drank their coffee sluggishly. He didn’t sit back down, however. Instead, stood at the end of the table—placing his hands on the table’s surface to call attention to himself.

“I’m gonna head home and get some sleep. I’ll be back at the loft later today before my dad gets back home.” Stiles said. “By the way, thanks for paying for my coffee.” He smiled, and slid out of the diner before Derek could point out the fact that Stiles was supposed to pay for his own damn coffee.

When Stiles actually got back home, he could barely carry himself up the stairs to his own bedroom. He actually contemplated crashing on the couch, but the thought of snuggling up in his own bed was far too enticing—outweighing his tiredness.

He fell asleep instantly and got in a pretty decent amount of slumber hours. Nevertheless, he was still incredibly tired when two o’clock rolled around and Stiles’ alarm went off. He had to get back to the loft and continue searching for as long as he could, considering the fact that his father would probably be back home around dinner time.

As he dressed himself, still mentally begging for his bed to somehow come to life and drag him back into its warmth, his cell-phone began to ring. It was probably Derek—calling to tell him to get his ass back to the loft—but when Stiles checked the caller ID, it wasn’t Derek. It was Scott.

“Hey.” Stiles said. He put his phone on speaker and set it down on the top of his dresser as he slipped on a shirt. “What’s up?”

“So, apparently we’re going to Lydia’s party tomorrow. You’re not going to be busy or anything, right?”

“W—why would I be busy? It’s not like there’s anything to do around here since Jackson stopped turning into a lizard monster.”

“I was just wondering.” Scott said. He paused for a moment and then switched topics. “I was thinking about inviting Isaac. What do you think?”

Stiles didn’t respond right away. He honestly didn’t feel like having to hang out with Isaac outside of searching for Erica and Boyd. Sure, he had just helped get Isaac’s blood samples tossed out, but that didn’t mean they were friends. Scott, on the other hand, seemed like he wanted to become best-buddies with the guy.

“Depends on what Lydia says.” Stiles finally spoke up. “Isaac did try to kill her, after all.”

“Yeah, but he was under Derek’s orders.”

“And was totally capable of making his own choices.” Stiles argued. “It’s not that hard to say no to Derek.”

“I still might invite him. It’s not like he’ll do anything bad.”

“Let’s hope that Lydia doesn’t end being against your plus-one.” Stiles laughed. “Anyway, I gotta go. I have to pick up some groceries and clean up around the house before my dad gets back home. I’ll see you at the party.”

“Okay. Bring your party-face tomorrow. It’s gonna be wild.” Scott said, ending the conversation.

It was the end of that. Unfortunately, it didn’t exactly steer in Stiles’ favor. He definitely wasn’t too happy about Isaac joining Lydia’s party attendance list. Though, there wasn’t much that he could do about it. It wasn’t like he could have forbidden Scott from inviting Isaac—not when Stiles was the one practically hanging around Isaac everyday of the week.

Despite the fact that Stiles didn’t personally think that Isaac was a worthy candidate as a “friend”, Scott obviously begged to differ. Therefore, Stiles couldn’t really complain. The last thing that he wanted to do was come across as the jealous friend. However, the thought of Scott being able to find a friend in somebody who was like him—a werewolf—wasn’t the kind of thought that Stiles too very kindly to.

When Stiles arrived at Derek’s loft, he wasn’t exactly in the perfect mood to run around the town, but he had to do it. He was still extremely tired from overworking himself into the ground throughout his father-free weekend. But he knew that it would all pay off once Derek’s betas were found.

The moment he walked through the threshold, he crossed his arms and began to generously rub at his own biceps due to the sudden drop in temperature in the room. It was freezing and Stiles was pretty sure that he could see his own breath puffing through the icy air of the loft.

“Okay, Mr. White Christmas. I think your icy personality has finally taken control of your loft’s air-conditioning system. This is ridiculous. Don’t tell me that you’ve finally decided to become an ice-themed super villain. I just couldn’t support that…even if it would be pretty sick.”

Derek looked up from where he sat across the room at his desk and sighed his typical dramatic sigh. “The air-conditioning unit is stuck and I haven’t been able to turn it off since last night. Deal with it.”

“That’s easy for you to say, considering you’re a werewolf and your body is unnaturally hot." Stiles walked up to the front of the desk. “I’m human—a poor, innocent, defenseless human and this is torture.”

Derek just gave Stiles a gruesome glare, reluctant to respond. “This is where we need to look next.” He pointed down to the piece of paper that he had been previously scribbling on. It was a map.

“Ah, yes. A circled area on a map.”

“There’s an old sawmill somewhere over here in this area of woods. We need to make sure that the alpha pack isn’t using it as a hideout.”

“Sounds good.” Stiles said, spinning around to look around the room. “Where’s douche-face? He didn’t bother showing up for work today?”

“It doesn’t matter. He’s not a necessity. We can search through the sawmill by ourselves.” Derek explained, standing up from his seat. “Do you have your bat?”

Stiles pointed back towards the door of the loft. “Yeah, it’s downstairs in my jeep.”

“Good. You might need it.”

The three of them drove out to the section of the woods that Derek had wanted to search. They spent a good couple of hours tracking through the area, with Derek and Isaac sniffing their own noses raw as they attempted to pick up on the familiar scents of Erica and Boyd. Stiles followed closely behind, baseball bat in hand, occasionally getting sidetracked as he took in all of the green scenery.

With the hot summer sun beating down on them from where it held its position high in the sky, Stiles actually missed the freezing arctic temperatures of Derek’s loft. And despite Derek and Isaac continuing on as if they weren’t bothered by the heat, their sweat soaked shirts were a good indication that they were just as miserable.

As time passed, Stiles and Isaac began to wonder how outdated that map of Derek’s had been. They had been searching hours and with still no luck as to where the hell the mystical sawmill was located. And due to the fact that the map hadn’t listed the sawmill at a specific street address, they were left to search the supposed vicinity of where the sawmill was _probably_ located.

Eventually, the trio stumbled into a patch of the woods that had been cleared free of tall trees, leaving behind numerous tree trunks scattered around—though, still rooted into the ground. The stumps looked like a maze that surrounded the middle of the semi-empty patch, right where the sawmill would obviously be located. However, there was no sawmill to be seen.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” Stiles snarled, dropping his bat to the ground so that he could rub tirelessly at his face. “Somebody tell me that this is some sort of fucking joke.”

There was technically a sawmill in the middle of the stump surrounded patch, but it was more than just abandoned. There was barely anything left—just remains. The walls and the roof of the structure had been ripped off, leaving behind only the rusted metal frames of the building. From the looks of it, there was also some of the old saw machinery left behind, too. Nevertheless, it wasn’t a hiding place—definitely not one for a pack of alphas.

“There was supposed to be something here.” Derek explained. “It should still be here.”

It was clear that he was upset, having wasted so much time out of the day searching for something that no longer existed. The time could have been used to search in a different place—somewhere that wasn’t so far out of the way. Nevertheless, Derek’s disappointment didn’t lessen how frustrated Stiles and Isaac had become upon finding out the news.

“Looks like the sawmill closed up shop and moved somewhere less remote.” Isaac observed, kicking aimlessly into the dirt on the ground.

“Perfect...just _perfect_. Y’know, this is exactly what I spent two hours hiking through these woods to find.” Stiles picked up his baseball bat, waving it around towards the direction of the sawmill ruins.

“You could have stayed home if you didn’t want to come out here. We can still search around this area.” Isaac snipped.

“Yeah, I’d be down to go a second round with you guys, but my dad is coming back home tonight and I never actually got around to making sure that he doesn’t come home to a pig-pen.” Stiles huffed loudly, walking back towards where they had just walked from. “Let’s do this again sometime, boys.”

Derek didn’t bite back with a response to Stiles’ outburst. He stared solemnly at the remains of the old sawmill for a couple more moments. It was a sad, yet understandable thing to see. His _father_ hadn’t gotten the chance to finish up construction before the fire. A road up to the establishment hadn’t even been made. It was just disappointing to see that it hadn’t held up in the six years of being abandoned.

It was a pleasant surprise that Derek didn’t stomp out of the woods like he had after coming face-to-face with Matthew in the subway tunnels. Though, Stiles realized he was the one making a childish exit this time around. In his defense, he was overly tired and had very little patience to work with. Trudging through the hot woods for hours certainly hadn’t helped.

When the guys finally reached the main road where the cars were parked, the sun had already begun to set behind the tall trees and the weirdo sounds of the woodland night started to appear. Meaning, the sounds of strange, unidentifiable birds, insects, and animals began to fill the air. Nevertheless, Stiles was able to take the sounds as a way to focus on something calming and cool himself down.

“Don’t worry. I’m sure there’s another place to look.” Stiles started to speak and the trio rounded the vehicles.

Derek didn’t seem to want any of Stiles’ words of encouragement, though. He seemed genuinely fed up with coming up short with each and every outing. It was understandable. It was infuriating not being able to hold onto any possible lead for more than a day. To Derek, it felt like he was losing his betas with each passing day—as if the searching was only pushing them further out of his grasp.

“When we were back at the sawmill…” Derek began, turning around to face where Isaac and Stiles stood. “Isaac, what did you say when we arrived at the sawmill?”

Isaac scratched at his face, letting his eyes wander around the ground as he tried to remember his exact words. “I—uh. I said that the sawmill was closed.”

“What else did you say?”

“Uh, I said that they probably decided to move to somewhere that wasn’t out in the middle of nowhere.”

Derek nodded. “They moved. What if the alpha pack isn’t staying in one place? They’re moving around.”

“You mean like they’re keeping themselves mobile?” Stiles asked. “It could explain why it feels like we’ve been chasing after the trail of lingering smoke.”

“We should re-visit all of the locations that we’ve searched over the past month. Werewolves like familiar places. If they’re moving from location to location, they could be hiding out in a place they’ve already been.”

Stiles rubbed at his eyes. “That would take us forever, Derek.”

“Which is exactly why we’ll start right now.” He said. “The sun has barely set. We can get an early start.”

Stiles laughed. Only, it wasn’t intentional. It was like his body was forcing himself to laugh due to how tired he was. There wasn’t anything funny about having to go back through all of the previous locations that they had searched through in Beacon Hills. He wasn’t calm anymore. He was in disbelief. Derek’s constantly pushing and constant orders were like lit matches to Stiles’ simmering patience.

“I can’t.” Stiles laughed some more. He ran his hands down his face. “Okay, I _can’t_. I need to get home and clean and sleep or else I’m not going to be able to even _go_ to Lydia’s party tomorrow.”

“A party? Is that seriously what’s more important to you, right now?”

“No, no, no…” Stiles mumbled, working himself up into an uproar. “I’ve been working myself into the ground searching for Erica and Boyd—giving up sleep, lying to my dad, lying to Scott, putting up with your attitude and your psychotic uncle. Don’t you dare try to act like _me_ being a normal teenager for _one night_ is forbidden.”

“Who’s to say that your one night out won’t be their last?”

Stiles scoffed. “What about the hours we just wasted walking to and from the non-existent sawmill you randomly picked out on your map? For all we know, tonight could have been their last!”

The two stood like statues—faces practically pressed together in ferocious anger. Neither of them quite understood how they had ended up so close together. In the midst of their voices getting louder and their words getting harsher, their bodies just naturally came together. Both of them wanted the other to turn away and leave, since that was the obvious rule of a heated argument. The first one to back down lost.

Derek could feel Stiles’ hot huffs of angry breaths washing over his face as Stiles refused to budge. The same went for Stiles, except Derek’s breaths were certainly heavier and most likely angrier. The words that they had exchanged were hard and cold, yet equally charged—enough to push one another’s buttons.

“Enjoy your party.” Derek said, straightening up his posture and turning around to get into his car. “Don’t bother coming back to the loft.”

Stiles rolled his tongue against the inside of his cheek and scoffed some laughter at Derek’s immaturity. Instead of even bothering to continue with the argument, Stiles just got into his jeep and drove back towards the inner parts of Beacon Hills—leaving Derek and Isaac back at the Camaro.

The lack of sleep was the reason for his bad mood. That was Stiles’ defense. It’s not like he set out to start a problem with Derek, but after hiking through the woods on fumes—only to find nothing—it was a huge blow to his patience. He knew that after he got home and got some decent sleep, he’d be back on his feet with a better attitude on his shoulders. Maybe Derek would take the same advice considering the guy was probably just as tired and was just as impossible to talk to.

The sun was officially out of the sky by the time Stiles pulled up into the driveway of his house. His father still hadn’t gotten back from Sacramento, which meant he had some time to straighten up around the house before it was too late. The house wasn’t too messy, so he just spent a couple minutes loading the dishwasher and fixing minor things around the living room—nothing too big of a task. Again, he was tired and was practically half-conscious before he finally dragged himself upstairs and turned in for the night—skipping dinner and his father’s return.


	9. The Fourth of July

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lydia's "Fourth of July" party leads to some interesting revelations for Stiles.

It was late into the afternoon—early evening, actually— by the time Stiles finally woke up. Even then, Stiles remained in bed for as long as he possibly could—tangled up into the sheets of his bed with his eyes still closed. He tossed and turned, trying to persuade himself to drift off back to dreamland, but his body wasn’t having any of it. He laid there and listened to the somewhat soothing sound of his air conditioner running through the vents of his house.

Upon jumping out of his bed, Stiles grabbed his phone and checked his messages out of habit. It wasn’t a surprise that Derek hadn’t left any new messages, though, Stiles wouldn’t have been surprised if Derek had left a giant paragraph of swear words that even he probably hadn’t heard before. And if the digital clock on his cell phone wasn’t lying, then it really was five o’clock in the afternoon already and there was still plenty of time for Derek to text him with obscenities.

Stiles was still pretty bitter over the whole thing despite getting some sleep. Sure, he had been tired and frustrated and maybe he went a bit overboard in terms of losing his patience over Derek’s little wild goose chase through the woods in search of a sawmill. On the other hand, Derek’s lack of ability to sympathize had come across as being even more annoying than it typically was—probably because of Stiles’ own deprivation of sleep. Nevertheless, that didn’t stop Stiles from mentally fuming over the whole ordeal as he lounged around his house until it was time to start getting ready for Lydia’s party.

Stiles wasn’t typically big on having to wear themed party attire. Maybe when he was a little kid, but now? Definitely not as fun. However, Lydia said that patriotic colors were required to get into the party and he definitely didn’t want to risk not being able to party it up.

He put on a simple white undershirt and threw a red and blue plaid flannel over it. A pair of blue jeans and blue sneakers seemed to be all that he needed to finish his own Fourth of July look. He hoped that he wouldn’t be turned away for looking too underwhelming. He had all the basic colors on. The only potential problem was that he looked like his normal, everyday self. He wasn’t too jazzed up.

Lydia’s party was packed with people. Not only was the unnecessarily long driveway that lead up to the front door of her home packed with the numerous cars of some of the guests, but there were also no available spaces to park on her street. Stiles ended up having to park a couple blocks away and then walk up to the party. Needless to say, from where he walked on the street, he could already hear the humming thumps of whatever kickass music was playing inside of Lydia’s mansion.

The turnout was certainly better that what she got for her seventeenth birthday party back in March. After going missing and running around naked through the woods, her status of popularity had taken a pretty big hit. But it suddenly looked as if nobody wanted to miss one of Lydia’s infamous holiday parties.

Lydia opened the front door, giving Stiles’ choice of outfit a quick once-over to see if he was wearing the colors needed in order to enter the party. When she realized that Stiles met the dress-code criteria, she moved to the side and motioned for Stiles to join.

“Scott’s already here.” She said, weaving through the pulsating crowd of bodies as she walked towards one of her three living rooms. “Unfortunately, he brought his psycho of a friend along with him.”

“Who? Isaac?”

Lydia shrugged. “I never bothered to remember the name of the guy who wanted to kill me because he thought I was a giant friggin’ lizard...but yeah. He’s here.” She stopped in her tracks, pointing over to the corner of the room where Isaac and Scott were talking to each other—laughing and sipping on drinks.

Stiles remained where he stood, even after Lydia walked off to do something else. He texted his father that he’d be at Lydia’s Fourth of July party with Scott, reassuring him that things wouldn’t get too crazy. He watched enviously as Isaac and Scott joked around, but didn’t think about walking over to join the conversation until he saw Scott take Isaac’s red cup and walk off to get refills.

“So—” Stiles crossed his arms, walking up to Isaac. “Big Daddy Alpha let you out of the house to go to a party? Did he tell you to never return to his loft again for choosing a party over searching for Erica and Boyd?”

Isaac scoffed. “He was just in a bad mood.”

“He’s _always_ in a bad mood.”

“Yeah, well, it’s annoying as hell. How do you stand living with him?”

“It’s called: ‘I wouldn’t mind having a bed, food, and a roof over my head’”.

Scott walked up to the two of them and handed Isaac his freshly refilled drink. It was some sort of non-alcoholic, blue colored punch. However this time, Stiles was sure that it wasn’t spiked with hallucinogenic wolfsbane.

“Bigger crowd than Lydia’s last party.” Stiles nudged at Scott’s shoulder, jokingly. “Not to mention the extreme lack of sixteen year old stalker lizard puppeteers.”

“I was just telling Isaac that.” Scott laughed, but Stiles didn’t. “I mean, can you even believe we get invited to Lydia’s parties now? Last year, we weren’t even cool enough to speak her name.”

“Wow...you seem really laid back and chill.” Stiles noted. “Summer must be doing you well.”

Scott nodded earnestly. “It feels different not being weighed down by almost getting killed and not being surrounded by other people getting killed. I’ve just been focusing on school work. It’s easier.”

Stiles tried to look as happy as he could. It was difficult knowing that there was a pack of alphas lurking around, capable of jumping out of the shadows at any given minute and ripping Scott back into his life of supernaturalness. As Scott talked, Stiles kept his attention and tried not to look over to where Isaac was standing. He was sure that Isaac was giving him all sorts of “you better not tell Scott” stares.

Eventually, the three of them jumped on to talking about something else—something that didn’t make Stiles feel bad about the murky tide that was going to wash in. It was a party, after all. The objective wasn’t to worry. It was to relax and have a fun time.  

Two cute girls wandered over and introduced themselves. Cara was blonde and Nadia was brunette. They were students from Highland Prep, a prestigious high school whose lacrosse team rivaled that of Beacon Hills High. They joined the boy’s little party of three and fueled more conversation on a variety of topics. They all talked and laughed—falling into their own world inside of Lydia’s enormous party.

Hours passed and the entertaining conversations stretched longer. The surrounding sound of music and chatter seemed to grow louder. The body heat from all the guests certainly made things a whole lot sweatier. When Stiles looked down at his watch he saw that it was already ten-thirty. It was getting late and he knew that he should probably head back home, but he wasn’t tired. Hell, he had slept in till five so that he could party all night.

"Hey, I’ll be right back. I’m gonna go get some more punch.” Stiles tapped on Scott’s shoulder, talking to the small group of people he was hanging out with.

Stiles dodged and turned through the crowd towards the kitchen where all the snacks and drinks were splayed out for choosing. He continued walking until somebody tapped a couple times on his shoulder, prompting him to stop and turn around to see who it was.

It was a guy—a well stacked, dark-skinned teenager with gorgeous brown eyes and dreadlocks that fell to his broad shoulders. He was wearing a red blazer that squeezed his biceps in all the right places, and blue skinny jeans that only amplified his attractiveness.

“Hey.” The man said boldly, taking the opportunity to show off his bright smile. “I was wondering if I could buy you a drink—or, I mean, pour you a drink, rather…”

“I was just—sure, yeah. I’d like that.” Stiles laughed, letting the man follow him to the kitchen.

Stiles stood at the side of the kitchen’s large island as the teen poured him a cup of the blue punch. He swirled around and handed Stiles the cup with a smile and a, “here you go”.

“Thanks.” Stiles said, taking a sip. “I’m Stiles—”

The guy went wide-eyed in shock, almost as if Stiles had just said the dumbest thing in the entire world. “Oh, I know who you are! You were the one who kicked our school’s ass with that winning shot at the last lacrosse game of the season.”

“Yeah...sorry.” Stiles scratched at the side of his neck, taking another big gulp of punch.

“Don’t be sorry. I thought it was hot the way you worked that field. Plus, our school’s team sucks anyways. We didn’t honestly deserve a win.” He laughed, and then extended his hand out to Stiles. “I’m Victor, by the way.”

As the two continued their conversation, Stiles tried his best not to let his face blush red. He had never actually been picked up on before, so the attention was nice. Being told that something he did was hot felt awesome. Plus, being flirted with and complemented by such an attractive guy certainly wasn’t bad. Maybe the fact that Stiles was going to be a junior soon was finally bringing in some good luck.

“So...do you wanna, _maybe_ , get out of here?” Victor asked, setting his own cup down on the kitchen countertop beside him. “My place is practically in Lydia’s backyard. It’s the equally-as-big house directly behind Lydia’s. No joke. You won’t be disappointed.”

Victor’s words sent Stiles’ mind spiraling down into a thick fog of thought. There weren’t any questions as to what Victor could have possibly been insinuating when he asked Stiles to leave the party and head back to his house. And while certain parts of Stiles’ anatomy wanted to say “yes”, some parts remained confused and the rest of him said “no”.

Surprisingly enough, Victor’s cliché question wasn’t the center of Stiles’ focus. There was something else that Victor had said—something that made Stiles’ brain writhe and sting with thought. The comment about his house being practically in Lydia’s backyard intrigued him. In truth, it did a lot more than simply arouse his curiosity. It made him think of Derek. It made him think about Erica and Boyd. It made him think about the alpha pack and where they could possibly be hiding.

Suddenly everything seemed to click into place.

Matthew hadn’t been lying when he speculated about the alpha pack no longer being in Beacon Hills. That would explain the reason as to why they hadn’t bothered hunting down Matthew’s scent in the Beacon Hills Subway tunnels. It was because they hadn’t been hiding out in Beacon Hills where Matthew’s scent could have been easily smelled. That is, until they had come back to Beacon Hills to rob that first jewelry store. And if Stiles remembered correctly, they robbed that first jewelry store the same night that he and Derek had stumbled upon Matthew’s bloodied corpse. They had come back into town to steal stones and ended up catching a whiff of Matthew—sealing his fate.

The alpha pack had _never_ been hiding out in Beacon Hills. They rode into town, marked up Derek’s door, kidnapped Erica and Boyd, and rode out to hide somewhere else—somewhere _close_. The only time they returned to Beacon Hills was to essentially “run errands”, like murder Matthew and steal those moonstones. And if they were hiding somewhere close, where else could be closer to Beacon Hills than Beacon Hills’ very own _“backyard”_...?

Beacon Heights—the same city where Derek’s loft was located.

Stiles realized that he was spacing out thinking about the alpha pack and where they were really hiding. He turned back to Victor—who just continued to stare at Stiles with a hopeful, sultry gaze—and smiled innocently.

“I actually can’t.” Stiles started.  “It’s getting pretty late and my dad probably going to be pissed if I don’t go home. Maybe another time.”

Stiles gave a quick wave and bolted off towards where he left Scott and Isaac. He felt slightly disappointed in himself for shooting down an opportunity to get laid—even if it would be with some random hot dude he met at Lydia’s party. He’d have a chance again...probably.

Everybody was still where Stiles had left them. Isaac was standing at Scott’s immediate left, leaning slightly up against Scott’s arm as they both faced Cara and Nadia. They were talking about something, but as Stiles ran up to Scott—nearly crashing into him—and interrupted their conversation.

“Hey, sorry to run out on you guys, but I should probably get back home.” He said.

Isaac looked unimpressed—clearly unmoved by Stiles’ flimsy excuse. It didn’t matter, though. The only person that Stiles needed to persuade into believing his lie was Scott, who happened to just nod in agreement to Stiles’ excuse. No questions asked.

Stiles didn’t even bother heading home. He drove back to Beacon Heights with the hopes of talking to Derek. He was well aware that Derek would be stubborn as fuck and probably wouldn’t even be courteous enough to answer his door. Nonetheless, Stiles was a persistent little shit who was determined to get his message through Derek’s thick skull.

Standing before Derek’s loft door, Stiles was already certain that Derek already knew he was here. He probably heard the elevator, his footsteps, and heartbeat. Still, Stiles hesitated to knock. There wasn’t any question as to whether or not he was going to tell Derek what he figured out—he was. The problem was that he didn’t know if he should apologize about the ridiculous argument about the sawmill and Lydia’s party. Was that something that should be brought up? Was that old news? Should it just be forgotten and done with?

“Derek, open up.” Stiles regained his nerve and spoke firmly, knocking four times on the metal door. “I know you’re not sleeping—you don’t sleep. And I know that you’re in there because your car is downstairs. You’re not sly, jackass.”

_Shockingly_ , the door remained closed. Stiles couldn’t even hear any footsteps on the other side of the door, which meant that Derek wasn’t even thinking about possibly opening the door. Maybe he really was sleeping. Or maybe he found some sort of wolfsbane-laced alcohol and blacked out for the night.

“We were wrong.” Stiles admitted in a long sigh. “The alpha pack isn’t in Beacon Hills. They’ve never been in Beacon Hills. They’re _here_ , Derek. They’re in Beacon Heights.”

There wasn’t any sort of immediate reaction from Derek. No sounds of Derek’s footsteps walking around inside the loft, no sound of growls or huffs of frustrated breath, and definitely no sound of the loft’s door being opened. Stiles stood with his back up against the loft door—shaking his head in growing anger. Derek was a fucking child.

Stiles pushed off from where he stood with his back against the door and began towards the elevator, grumbling mean things about Derek under his breath. If Derek was really _that_ petty...really so fucking childish that he was willingly to put his fingers in his ears to avoid hearing something important just because of a fucking argument, then whatever.

Just as he was going to step back into the elevator, the sound of the loft’s door being unlatched and slid open rang through the air. Stiles closed his eyes and sighed, not sure if he was ready to face whatever Derek had to say—if he had anything to say at all.

Stiles walked back up to the loft’s entrance to find Derek standing in the wide, metal door frame with a look of uneasiness sketched upon his face. His eyes were flaring red in the dark shadows of the silvered corridor, and his bulging arms were hanging loosely at his sides—only drawing more attention to the fact that he was wearing nothing but a pair of loosely fit, black pajama bottoms that hung suggestively low at his lower waist.

“Why are you saying this?” Derek asked.

“Because it’s true.” Stiles confirmed, stepping into Derek’s loft. “Just think about it for a minute. The reason why we haven’t crossed paths with the alphas yet. The reason why the alphas didn’t kill Matthew until they came back into town to rob that jewelry store. They’ve had us chasing air.”

“It’s just your theory, Stiles. It’s not fact. You have no proof, and we don’t have time to change search-tactics just because you think something.”

“Well, if you would just listen to me for a second—”

“No!”

“YES!” Stiles bit back loudly, pulling Derek’s attention.

Derek stood with his barefeet firmly planted down on the cold cement floor. The large arch-window of his loft was behind him, allowing the moonlight to illuminate his body while Stiles stood directly across from him—sharp shadows laid between the two.

There was certainly more to the argument that Derek wanted to add. He could feel the spark of an idea circulating within his brain, but it wasn’t coming to him in an intelligible way. He was stuck, unsure of what to say and how to say it.

“You’re scared.” Stiles said calmly, motioning over to where Derek stood. “You don’t want me to be right because then it means that we’ve spent weeks and weeks combing through Beacon Hills for nothing.”

Derek turned around and walked over to the window—staring out into the lights of the city. He pressed both of his palms and forehead to the chilled glass and closed his eyes, taking in the quiet and trying to get his thoughts together. Stiles didn’t interrupt. He waited patiently out of Derek’s space, waiting for him to say something— _anything_.  

“Why would they come here?” Derek finally asked.

“Just going off the top of my head...there’s more places to hide.”

“Which means that we have more places to look.”

“So—” Stiles casually placed his arms behind his back, walking closer to Derek. “Does that mean you believe me?”

Derek shook his head, turning around to face Stiles’ arrogantly _adorable_ face. “No. It means that there’s a possibility that you _might_ be right...and I want my betas back.”

Okay, _okay_. That was fair. It was basically Derek’s own way of saying, “yes, I believe you”, which was more than enough to satisfy Stiles. He’d take what he could get.

“And next time you want to choose a party over helping search for somebody, let me know ahead of time.”

“First of all, I’m noticing a lack of something tall, blond, and annoying wandering around your man-cave right now? How come he got a free-pass to the party but I got the third degree, Mr. Alph—

Stiles cell phone began to chirp loudly with the otherwise obnoxious sound of some sci-fi music. He paused his conversation, reaching down into his pocket and pulling out his phone. It was his father, and seeing as how it was a quarter to midnight, he was in trouble.

“What’s up, Dad!” Stiles said cheerfully, as if hoping that his father wouldn’t be pissed.

“I’m sure you have some witty explanation as to why it’s almost midnight and you’re still out partying, but if you don’t want the local police department personally dragging your ass out of your little party, then your ass better be in bed in the next fifteen minutes.” John said.

“I’ll be home soon! I promise.”

“Not ‘soon’. Make it _now_.” He hung up the phone, leaving Stiles slightly embarrassed that Derek probably heard everything.

“We’ll talk tomorrow.” Stiles shuffled towards the loft’s exit. “Sorry for interrupting your alone-time. I’ll let you get back to doing whatever you were doing before I barged in. Y’know, _“whatever”_ delayed your answering of the door and whatever made you hurriedly pull on those ill-fitting pants.”

Derek was about counter Stiles’ lewd insinuation, but it was too late. Stiles already shut the loft’s heavy door behind his exit and took off back to Beacon Hills.

 


	10. First Night in Beacon Heights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Following the revelation that the alpha pack might be hiding out in somewhere other than Beacon Hills, Stiles and the others start their investigation of Derek's new city.

Stiles was awakened by the sound of his father calling out his name. He sat up in his bed—eyes fluttering open through the blurriness of sleep. His eyes ached and desperately wanted to close shut, but he could see that his father was standing across the room at the threshold of his bedroom door.

“Wh—what time is it?” Stiles asked, groggily.

“Seven.”

Stiles groaned and threw himself back down into the cushion of his pillows. Why the hell was his dad waking him up so early for no good reason? It wasn’t like he didn’t know that Stiles got back late after the party. Was getting woken up punishment for staying out so late? Probably.

“I need you to remember to take the jeep down to the auto-shop for an oil change sometime today. Don’t forget.”

Stiles grabbed a pillow and stuffed it down onto his face, grumbling into the fabric as he raised a simple “thumbs-up” to tell his father that he’d remember. He really didn’t want to sit in a boring auto-body shop that reeked of tires and grease, but Stiles would have practically agreed to anything if it meant that he could get back to sleep. After all, sleep was practically always his priority.

At noon, Stiles drove over to Derek’s loft so that they could start planning their search of the city. Beacon Heights was way bigger than Beacon Hills. It meant that there were going to be a lot more places to search. And if it were the final level of the game, then it would certainly be more dangerous than before. This was where they’d find the alphas, Erica, and Boyd. This was when things could go severely wrong.

“Good morning.” Stiles said and he strode into Derek’s loft through the unlocked door with a cup of fresh coffee in his hands.

“So, you think that the alphas are somewhere in this city?” Peter asked from where he sat on the couch. “I’m sure you have sufficient proof to back up this theory, Stiles.”

“I have sufficient enough reason to back up the fact that I might find a way to kill you _permanently_ one of these days.” Stiles sneered.

Peter gave a subtle growl and stood up from the couch in anger. Derek quickly interrupted the display of anger with a growled back, “sit down”—prompting Peter to reluctantly take his place back down on the couch. Derek rolled his eyes and tried to ignore Peter’s presence.

“Did you bring police reports?” Derek asked. He turned to Stiles for the answer, but was only met with a confused expression. It was like he had just asked the most bizarre question in the universe.

“Police reports? For what?”

“To figure out what addresses in this city we need to start investigating. The reports might have leads as to where the alphas might be hiding.”

Stiles bit at the inside of his cheek nervously. “Oh, yeah. That’s not going to happen this time.” He said it as carefully as he could without shocking Derek.

“Why not?” Derek’s voice grew slightly louder.

“My father’s jurisdiction doesn’t stretch over into this county. Strangely enough, Beacon Heights doesn’t fall under Beacon County. I don’t even know why, but without jurisdiction, I can’t get reports. There aren’t any addresses for us to investigate.” Stiles sighed. “We’re going into this blind.”

“Can’t you just get your little hacker friend to get you into the police database or something?” Isaac suggested. “He’s useful.”

“And continuing to bring him into this mess will only make him more suspicious, so no, I guess we’ll do this without any reports.” Derek said. He walked over to his desk and pulled out another map, urging everybody else to fill in around the table.

Unlike the previous maps used, this one was a map of Beacon Heights—not Beacon Hills. It was clean and free of markings. Absolutely nothing was circled, especially not any unknown sawmills off in the wilderness. For a moment, Stiles actually began to wonder if Derek was some sort of part-time map collector or something. The man certainly did have a lot of maps handy.

“What’s the game plan?” Stiles rubbed his hands together excitedly.

“We’ll do this in pairs, starting on opposite sides of the city and work our way down to the center.” Derek pointed over to where Peter and Isaac stood alongside each other. “You two will start checking out places in South Beacon Heights. Stiles and I will start here in the North.”

“It could take us months to search everything thoroughly.” Isaac stated, looking between the stares of everybody else that stood around the table. “Maybe we need more people to help. Scott could—”

“No. Keep Scott out of this.” Derek interrupted. He stared at Isaac for a moment to make sure that his words stuck. “Meet back here around midnight. The city will be less busy and we can search without conflict.”

“Will do.” Stiles agreed.

For the following several hours, Stiles killed his time by relaxing at home and waiting around in the local auto-body shop while his jeep got an oil change. It was always an aggravating chore to do—same with going to the dentist and picking up groceries. But at least it kept the jeep in working order.

The biggest problem was that the auto-body shop smelled like tires and burnt grease. Stiles was pretty sure that after about ten minutes of pacing around the shop’s waiting room, his nose hairs were completely singed off. Not only that, but Stiles wasn’t too fond of having to wait around in the same place where he got paralyzed and was forced to watch a mechanic get crushed to death.

Thanks, Kanima.

When it was finally time to get back to Derek’s loft, Stiles almost wanted to cry from joy. It was finally time to do something interesting. It would be something that didn’t involve having to listen to the sound of air drills for an hour while having to stare down into the grimy black and white checkered retro flooring of the auto-body shop.

Stiles pulled into the parking lot of Derek’s building. To his surprise, he found the three werewolves hanging around Derek’s car. It wasn’t like he was super late or anything. It was only a couple minutes past midnight. But apparently, the three guys decided that it was a nice night to stand outside in the cold.

“Is there a reason you guys are all standing outside?” Stiles asked, getting out of his jeep.

“Would there have been a point for you taking the elevator all the way upstairs, just to come back down again to head out?” Derek replied, walking towards Stiles at the jeep. “Now we can waste less time and get on the road.”

Stiles shrugged in agreement. “Okay, so is there a reason that you’re not getting into your own car?”

“We’re splitting up into two pairs. They’re taking my car.” He gestured over to where Isaac and Peter stood by the Camaro. Peter spun Derek’s keys around his index finger.

“Does your uncle not own his own car? Does he just jog around town to get to the places he wants to go? Where the fuck does he even live?” Stiles began to trip into a series of questions, but Derek just slid himself into the passenger’s side of the jeep and demanded that Stiles hurry up and get into the car.

With the night of searching through Beacon Heights at its official beginning, Peter and Isaac drove down to the southern part of the city like they had been instructed to do so. There, they could loom through the city’s financial district. Meanwhile, Derek and Stiles took to sticking around the northern part of the city which happened to be mostly industrial—laid out with factories and warehouses. It was the same part of the city where Derek’s loft was located.

North Beacon Heights was a miserable creepfest, _especially_ at night. Between the minimal amount of streetlamps—most of which were either flickering or not working—plus the garbage-lined roads, tax dollars weren’t being spread evenly throughout the city. The place looked unquestionably post-apocalyptic. There was no question as to why Derek and Stiles were the only people dumb enough to drive around the shadowed roads.  

As the clock pulled around to near two o’clock, Stiles and Derek had already snooped around a couple big factories that could have easily housed a couple big bad alphas. The factories were all closed for the night and two out of three of the factories had no security guards posted for duty. It just made searching a whole lot easier. Unfortunately, neither of them were lucky enough to stumble upon any leads.

“Is there any reason in particular that you chose North Beacon Heights as a place to call home?” Stiles asked, gripping the steering wheel as he continued on down the dark, unlit road.

“The scenery.” Derek said sarcastically.

Stiles didn’t laugh. He rolled his eyes and continued to drive down the road. He kept a watchful eye out for any small animal that could have dart across the street at any given moment. A small animal or even a vengeful serial killer could have easily jumped out from the pitch black darkness that surrounded Stiles’ jeep from all directions. Stiles knew that he wouldn’t have been surprised if either happened.

“Do you even know where you’re heading?” Derek asked.

“No, but it’s not like we have a set list of destinations to check out. I figure we’ll drive around until we find somewhere interesting to investigate.”

All of a sudden, Stiles slammed his feet down on the brakes and skid the jeep to a rough halt. Derek instantly whipped his head sideways to shoot Stiles a fierce glare, annoyed with the heinous driving. He glared for only a moment before he realized that Stiles was far too invested with staring at something else in front of them.

Beyond the end of the crumbly asphalt road, there was a ton of wild grass. There was a large rusted gate that appeared to be locked shut with chains and a padlock. However, there wasn’t any way that the chains would actually keep anybody out. The gate looked so weak that even a gust of wind could have toppled it over.

The most interesting thing was the massive wooden sign that was bolted up above the rusted gate. The sign looked as though it had weathered one too many rainstorms, which left the red lettering on the wood faded and difficult to actually read. After a couple moments of deciphering what it actually said, the two realized that the sign read:

**“Thiagello’s Carnival”**

“A spooky, abandoned carnival out in the middle of nowhere.” Stiles said, pointing out the obvious. “It’s practically begging to be investigated. This is our cue.”

Stiles hopped out of the jeep, planting his feet firming onto the road. He looked around to both of his sides and into the sky, just to get a feel for the world that he was stepping out into. It was dark—darker than dark. It was pitch black and he was upset that he couldn’t somehow bring his jeep’s headlights into the carnival with him.

He circled around to the back of the jeep and grabbed both a flashlight and his baseball bat from the trunk. The flashlight was to help him see any potential ghosts and monsters that could pop out to fight him. The baseball bat was to help beat everything and anything off of his own good-looking virgin body.

Stiles slammed the trunk of the jeep shut and began to walk up towards the carnival’s rusted entrance. He scanned across the ground with the light of his flashlight just to make sure that he wasn’t going to step on anything, or trip over a log, or fall down a sinkhole—shrouded by the night’s darkness.

As he approached the entrance, he realized that he didn’t hear footsteps behind himself, nor did he hear Derek step out of the jeep. He turned around to find Derek still sitting in the luxury of the jeep, not even bothered to budge.

“Come on, Scoob! Would you do it for a Scooby Snack?” Stiles mocked, flashing his light in Derek’s immediate direction. He could see Derek angrily clenching his jaw through the windshield.

Derek eventually stepped out of the jeep and met up with Stiles at the carnival’s entrance. He gripped one of his hands tightly around the rusted lock and ripped it free from the chains. With a slight nudge at the gate, he pushed it open—internally cringing at the horrid sound that the hinges made as they were forced to do their job.  

“Come on.” Derek instructed, walking past Stiles.

“Any reason you didn’t want to get out of my jeep? You’re not afraid of clowns or something, right?” Stiles asked, swinging his baseball bat up to rest lightly on his shoulder—sure to not let the barbed wire prick his skin.

“I was focusing on my senses to get some information about this place before we stepped into it.” Derek revealed.

“Did you hear anything? Heartbeats or breathing? What about scents?”

“There’s nobody here at the moment, but I can smell the scents of other wolves that have wandered through his area. Some scents are old, some are recent. None of which are probably connected to the alphas.”

Stiles and Derek came to stop in the center of the carnival, right next to an old wooden ticket booth. They looked around at the available scenery, but there was barely anything to marvel at. Nothing but tattered tents and haunted looking buildings remained. Where were they supposed to look first?

The tents were barely even tents anymore. They were mainly shredded to pieces and some had large holes in them. The wind kept most of the loose and hanging material flapping in the breeze. As for the buildings, they looked worn and barely stable. Back in their heyday, they were probably bright and shiny, with beautiful colors to draw attention to them. Now, not even the non-existent lighting could hide the carnival’s decay.

“Should we start with the House of Mirrors or the Haunted Funhouse? It’s your pick.” Stiles chuckled, pointing out the two individual buildings of choosing.

The two started their search of the carnival from inside the House of Mirrors. Within the first couple minutes of wandering inside the maze of mirrors, they realized that it was something truly terrible. It was disorienting. If not because of all the mirrors, then because the light from Stiles’ flashlight was bouncing around in different directions.

It was a dark room, filled with mirrors that ranged in various sizes. Some of the mirrors were shattered to pieces; others were scratched with what looked to be claw marks. All of the mirrors—broken or not—had a film of filth spread across the surfaces of them, leaving the reflections murky looking.

Derek and Stiles remained as attentive as they could possibly be just in case something or somebody were to jump out from the reflective shadows. It was hard to know where things _really_ were due to the mixture of conflicting reflections. Occasionally, Derek would jerk his arm and go to strike something that he believed to be a dark figure moving out of the shadows, only to stop his fist from flying through a reflection of himself.

Stiles groaned, wiping at his nose. “Have you picked up on any sort of important scent to follow? I can barely breathe in this dust trap. Not to mention the fact that we’re probably breathing in deadly mold spores or something…”

“There’s just….” Derek took another whiff of the air. “...overlapping scents of random wolves. They haven’t been here for a couple days. They were probably just passing through.”

“So, in other words...nothing important here in this _delightful_ mirror maze?”

Derek nodded in confirmation and lead Stiles out of the house of mirrors, back to the outside center of the abandoned carnival. The next place that they decided to explore was the “Haunted Funhouse”, which is what it was actually called according to the decrepit faux-stone sign that was posted outside of the building.

The funhouse was made to look like an old castle. The exterior of the castle was made up of plaster bricks, all of which were faded in color. The funhouse had creepy, barred windows, and had plaster gargoyles that lined the roofline of the building.

Derek pushed opened the heavy wooden doors of the building and walked in. The interior was still decorated like an old castle, yet had some various pops of swirled colors and of course...more mirrors. However, these mirrors weren’t standard mirrors. These were the stereotypical funhouse mirrors that bent reflections into stupid shapes.

“It smells even worse in this place than in the House of Mirrors.” Stiles commented, sweeping over the floors and walls with the shine of his flashlight.

“You’re the one who wanted to check out this stupid carnival.”

“I mean, it smells like a tomb...but I guess it could be a pretty cool place to throw a party.” Stiles smiled, flashing the beam of his flashlight around in different directions to get a feel for the space. “Imagine some kickass music, flashing lights, drinks—”

A loud thud and a noisy groan from Derek snapped Stiles right out of his fantasy about funhouse parties. He whipped around to find Derek’s figure missing, but a large open hatch in the wooden floor open. Stiles peered over the hatch and shined his light down into the darkness.

A couple of feet down, Derek was sitting on the dirt floor of some sort of cellar-like room with a stunned expression on his face as he rubbed tenderly at his arm. He looked up from cellar at Stiles’ silhouetted figure behind the flashlight’s glare.

Don’t. Say. _Anything_.” He said, glaring as he picked himself up off the dirt ground.

Stiles tried his best to squeeze his lips together as hard as he could to keep himself from laughing, but he couldn’t do it. It was too hysterical. He couldn’t believe that _that_ actually just happened...and to Derek of all people.

“I can’t believe it!” Stiles howled in laughter. “You fell through a fucking trap-door. Just like how it happens in the movies.”

Derek pat his backside free of dust, mumbling sarcastic remarks to Stiles’ obnoxious laughter. He looked around the cellar, peering deep into the shadows of the surrounding area to see if there was anything worth noticing. To his surprise, there actually was.

In the corner of the cellar, there was a pile of rolled up sleeping bags. Just by the look of them, Derek could see that they were tattered and well-used, but they weren’t several years old. They most definitely were not left behind after the carnival’s closing. Other people had brought them. Other people were using the carnival as a hideaway place.

“What?” Stiles asked, watching Derek maneuver in towards the dark corner of the cellar where he couldn’t quite get his flashlight to shine. Nevertheless, he could see Derek’s “investigative face” working as handsomely as it usually did. “Did you find something?”

Stiles crept down into the cellar through the use of a metal ladder that was mounted to the side of the cellar’s wall, allowing people to climb the few feet down into it. He landed on the dirt ground and cautiously made his way over to where he could see Derek facing the wall. Inside of his own mind, he hoped that another dead body hadn’t just been found.  

“People have been sleeping down here.” Derek said, picking up one of the sleeping bags. “Werewolves...feral ones….but not the alphas.”

“How do you know that? Is this _too nice_ of a place for the famous alpha pack to spend their nights?” Stiles asked sarcastically.

“Actually, yes.” Derek assured. “These alphas aren’t feral. They’re clean, accustomed to normal life. They wouldn’t sleep down in the cellar of some old amusement park.”

“Have you met them before or something?”

Derek nodded reluctantly. “I crossed paths with two of them when I was younger, but the members change. The only person who I’m certain hasn’t changed is the leader.”

“So, then who's sleeping bags are these?”

“They probably belong to a pack that’s just passing through town. It’s not the pack we’re looking for.” Derek sighed, utterly drained.

The two finished off their search through the abandoned carnival. They had no idea if and when the other pack of werewolves would come back to claim their sleeping bags, so they quickly breezed through the other unexplored decaying tents and unstable buildings.

When Stiles and Derek finally decided that they had thoroughly combed through all corners of the fairgrounds, they got back to the jeep to head back to the slightly more populated area of North Beacon Heights. After all, it was already three-thirty in the morning which meant that Stiles needed to get back home.

“I hope I didn’t breathe in any deadly pathogens or something from all that nasty carnival air.” Stiles said, focusing on the road back into the inner city.

“Again, you’re the one who wanted to check out the carnival.”

“Too bad we didn’t find anything besides a couple of sleeping bags.” Stiles pointed out. “And speaking of those sleeping bags, don’t you think those werewolves will return and smell our scents in their domain?”

“It’s not their domain. It’s a hiding place. They’ll smell our scents and probably clear out to go hide somewhere else.” Derek explained.

Eventually, Stiles arrived back at Derek’s loft. He pulled into the parking lot and stopped in front of the building’s main entrance. Derek’s Camaro wasn’t anywhere in sight, which meant that Peter and Isaac hadn’t finished running around through the south side of the city. And considering that nobody had thought to set a “return to base” time before heading out, the two of them would probably stay out until the sunrise called for their return.

“Thank you.” Derek muttered softly. It wasn’t something that he said very often and his soft words made that clear.

Stiles stayed parked out in front of the building’s lobby entrance while he watched Derek walk up to the doors. It was just common courtesy to make sure that somebody got inside of their home safely before driving off. He just wanted to make sure that no muggers—or alphas—decided to drop down from the sky on ropes and attack. And given Beacon Hills’ reputation, it wasn’t impossible.

Before Derek even opened the door to step inside of his building’s lobby, Stiles found his mouth blurting out something that instantly made himself cringe with a streak of confusing embarrassment. It wasn’t like he said something crude. In fact, it was something that people typically said to somebody else before they went to bed.

He had blurted the word “goodnight” out of the open passenger side window of his jeep. He didn’t know why he cringed at saying it out loud, but if he had to guess, it was because he had never really said it to Derek. “Goodnight” was such a friendly thing to say to somebody, and it had come out so instinctually and normal—as if he and Derek were on friendly terms.

Were they? He didn’t know. Derek hadn’t even bothered to turn around and return the respectful statement. Either way, Stiles was briefly mortified.


	11. Power Through The Cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles refuses to put the search for Erica and Boyd on hold, despite his run in with the common cold.

The rest of the week seemed to fly by faster than usual. Unfortunately, nobody had come up with any clues regarding the alpha pack’s whereabouts. But the searching seemed to mull over easier than before. Stiles liked to think that it was because there weren’t piles and piles of police reports and maps to swim through, but everybody else thought that searching the city was more useful than searching through Beacon Hills.

A new tide of hope seemed to have washed over everybody.

It was a little after one in the early hours of Saturday morning. It had basically just turned from Friday to Saturday and Stiles had been out searching throughout the city for about an hour and a half after his father had turned in for the night. The search was going just as smoothly as it had the nights before.

Like clockwork, Peter and Isaac took the southern part of Beacon Heights, while Stiles and Derek took the north. The city was huge, but both pairs were checking out as many potential hiding places as they could as they worked towards the center of the city. Although, they were still pretty far away from getting to that goal.

Stiles and Derek had just finished searching through an old ice-cream factory that had been closed down a year ago. Again, there wasn’t any luck. There wasn’t anything to sniff out in the factory but some old boxes and the stale stench of rancid vanilla. Who knew that something so good could eventually smell so bad?

“Where should we look next?” Derek asked.

Derek walked alongside Stiles as the two of them made their way out of the factory and back to the jeep. Stiles didn’t answer, though. He walked silently—completely zoned out—with his head looking down to the dark asphalt as they walked.

“Stiles!” Derek called out, snapping back somewhat of Stiles’ attention.

“Wha—what? Oh yeah, we should do that.” Stiles said, blankly. He still wasn’t even sure what Derek had previously asked, but he didn’t feel in the mood to fully respond.

He rubbed tenderly at his throat, squeezing slightly at the sides. It ached, burned, and stung deep down inside with each swallow. It was a sore throat. And not only that, he was also beginning to feel clammy and groggy—like his mind was beginning to slowly disconnect from what was happening and retire somewhere else.

“What the hell is your problem?”

“I just don’t—uh—feel good, okay? Can you knock it off with all the questions?” Stiles unlocking the doors to his jeep.

Derek squinted at Stiles, taking a quick whiff of the surrounding air. He could definitely smell sickness radiating off of Stiles. He didn’t know why he hadn’t smelt it sooner, but now he knew for certain...a cold was starting to wreak havoc in Stiles’ body.

“You’re sick.” Derek said, getting into the jeep.

“You’re a real genius, you know that?” He replied sarcastically, although not paired with his normal level of enthusiasm. “I probably caught something from hanging around that damn carnival.”

Stiles pulled back onto the main road and began to drive, scanning the passing scenery with his eyes to see what building they’d jump out to investigate next. It was hard to focus on spotting a good looking place to stop, considering the fact that he was focusing so hard on trying to swallow his own saliva as slowly as he could to avoid the agonizing pain of his sore throat.

Meanwhile, Derek tried his best to find somewhere else to investigate too. However, he did occasionally look over to analyze Stiles’ current state of health. The common cold was a nasty scent that he remembered smelling on his human family members at the times when they were sick. He could smell Stiles’ health deteriorating as minutes passed.

The two stopped at a warehouse that was still in its structural skeleton phase. It wasn’t much of a hiding place since there were no walls for anybody to hide behind. Though, there were a couple unoccupied mobile trailers—probably for some of the construction workers—as well as there were a few metal storage crates that were about the size of cars. Those were the only things with the potential to be hiding places.

Stiles parked the jeep and turned off the engine, grabbing his baseball bat from the backseat before hurling himself out into the open air. He shivered and zipped up his hoodie, trying to conserve some of his own body heat. The cold wind of the night didn’t seem to want to be nice.

“Well…” Stiles said, rubbing at his nose with the sleeve of his hoodie. “Are you picking up any scents?”

“ _Yours_.” Derek griped. “You need to go home.”

Stiles coughed into the bend of his elbow, wincing at the pain from possibly coughing up a layer of his own throat. “Aw, that’s sweet.” He sarcastically cooed with a rasp to his voice. “But seriously…”

Derek sighed impatiently. “I don’t smell anything. Let’s check out the trailers and storage containers just to be certain.” He gestured outwards, letting Stiles lead the way.

They spent a good fifteen minutes running a thorough check of the construction site. To their disappointment, there was no luck to be had. All of the time spent having Derek freeze in place and focus his hearing on mobile trailers and storage containers to listen for voices and heartbeats was just another waste of time, so they got back onto the road.

“Look, I know what you’re thinking.” Stiles said, eyeing the road in front of them. Derek stared at him from the passenger seat. “You think that since I’m coming down with something, I need to go to bed, drink up some soup, and rest.”

“No, I _know_ that since you’re sick, your already weak human reflexes are even weaker and you’re at a greater risk of hurting yourself or getting hurt by whatever we run into.”  

Stiles looked to Derek and squinted his eyes in frustration, but Derek’s stern expression didn’t budge. His bullshit “alpha knows best” exterior was plastered on pretty damn solid.

“Fine.” Stiles chirped in stale agreement. “I’m not going to argue with a night off.”

Stiles dropped Derek off in the front of his building without anything more than a simple wave of his hand. There were no words; just the silent mix of both Stiles’ and Derek’s contrasting smug expressions through the jeep’s window before Stiles sped off.

Of course, he could have stayed and argued and let Derek continue to whine about how it just wasn’t acceptable for Stiles to be out searching through the town in his condition...since, y’know, _Derek knows best_. Whatever.

That would have only added to Stiles’ already prominent exhaustion. Plus, he honestly wasn’t feeling so hot. Despite the fact that he had half the mind to ignore Derek’s ridiculous “parenting” and just head back out to resume searching, he drove back home and snuck back into his bed to actually get some rest.

Morning came and Stiles stayed in bed. He slept through the late afternoon before he woke up and spent another hour debating on whether or not to actually head over to Derek’s loft to continue with the searching. He knew for a fact that Derek would still be on his whole, “you’re sick, therefore, you can’t help” thing. But Stiles wasn’t too fond of letting it stop him from doing what he wanted.

Stiles showed up at the front door of Derek’s loft, dressed in an older pair of jeans, some sneakers, and a fluffy hoodie for extra comfort. He wore his backpack—the one he typically used for school—but this time, it was packed with his laptop, its charger, a box of tissue, and some cough drops.

Derek wasn’t going to let him go out with everybody else and stomp through the town in search of the betas, but that didn’t mean that Stiles had to stand helplessly on the sidelines and wait until his immune system kicked his cold’s ass.

The loft’s door was hauled open and Derek almost growled at Stiles’ presence. The smell of Stiles’ sickness almost knocked the wind out of his lungs. It was putrid. Peter and Isaac cringed at the scent from where they stood inside the loft.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing here? I told you that you’re too much of a risk when you’re like this.” Derek said.

“Don’t bust a fucking gasket.” Stiles sniffled, walking into the loft. “I don’t plan on driving around town all night with you. But I also don’t plan on _not_ providing my assistance. So, I’ll be here on my laptop, searching for whatever clues and leads I can find.”

“Shouldn’t you be hanging out with Scott to continue keeping him in the dark? It’s the weekend.”

“He’s out of town with his mom, visiting a grandma.” Stiles explained through stuffy speech. “So, I told my dad that I’m spending the night at Danny’s and I’ll just work over here instead.”

Stiles sat himself down on the couch. He set his backpack down on the coffee table in front of him and pulled out his laptop, opening it up and turning it on. He didn’t have any police reports to look through, nor did he have one of Derek’s blank maps to mark up with possible locations to investigate. Nevertheless, he wasn’t completely helpless. There were other opinions.

“What exactly do you plan on doing here all night?” Isaac asked.

Stiles shrugged sarcastically. “I don’t know. Order a pizza. Watch some movies. Throw a party. Teenager stuff.”

“Stiles.” Derek interrupted, urging Stiles to give a serious answer.

“I don’t know! I’ll find something useful to do. Just go—search the town. I’ll be fine.” Stiles waved his hands in a shooshing motion, and the three werewolves cleared out of the loft to leave Stiles by himself.

With the rest of the guys gone, it felt a whole lot like how things were before Stiles made Derek and the others take him out into the night. Stiles was left to his own devices, but this time, it was his choice. Truth be told, he honestly wasn’t feeling up to wandering around the city in the cold. However, he certainly didn’t want to represent himself as somebody that let a little cold keep him down.

Stiles had no clue what exactly he could do to help. He was focusing so much on the fact that his father didn’t have jurisdiction over Beacon Heights County, which meant that there were no local police reports to use for clues. There had to be other ways—there just _had_ to be.

And there were.

Eventually, Stiles realized that not everything good had to be found in a box of stuffy old paper documents. Police reports were useful, but certainly not the only source of help to be found. He realized that things like police radio broadcasts and even old newspaper articles could potentially offer some assistance.

Without even second guessing himself, Stiles downloaded a police scanner app onto his laptop and found the local station that was centered around the Beacon Heights area. Of course, the police chatter on the scanner station wasn’t designated to just police calls. Medical and fire-rescue forces were all tied into the station, so sometimes different calls would get interrupted and cut out, making it hard to hear all the details.

Regardless of the frequently garbled voices seeping out of his laptop’s speakers, Stiles worked furiously to type out all the clear words and sentences that he heard into an open word document. This way, Stiles could go back and re-read through the police reports to see if anything important stuck out.

Hours passed and Stiles’ fingers began to get tired with all of the continuous typing. He had probably filled up fifty pages of word documents with fragmented police chatter that he knew he’d eventually have to read through to pick out anything useful if it meant finding the betas.

While Stiles continued to work as the undeclared secretary of Derek’s loft, he couldn’t help but begin to lose his concentration as he began to feel his cold symptoms grow way worse than they were throughout the late afternoon and early evening. He hated when that happened. It had to do with something about the body’s immune system shutting down at night—thus leaving cold symptoms to get worse.

The human body was bullshit.

After a while, Stiles’ nose had become completely stuffed up, a monstrous headache was beginning to rear its ugly face, and Stiles was pretty certain that he was coming down with a fever—considering the fact that Derek’s loft was pretty chill, but Stiles was sweaty and couldn’t escape his case of the chills.

Stiles’ fingers began to clack slower and slower at his keyboard, while his eyelids began to feel heavier which each passing minute. He found himself losing a sense of time as his eyes would close briefly, but he would be jolted back awake with no clue as to whether or not he had actually dozed off or not.

Eventually, he couldn’t fight it any longer. The clacking on the keyboard stopped all together, and Stiles laid back down onto the couch, drifting off to the sound of screechy police radio voices. Despite the noise, Stiles didn’t bother to wake. He was too far gone and his sickness was making sure that he stayed asleep.

It was about five-thirty in the early morning when Derek and Isaac stepped back into the loft— immediately met with the ridiculous sight of Stiles sprawled out on the couch in a seemingly impossible and unquestionably uncomfortable position. As well as they were treated to the delightful melody of Stiles’ sick snore-whistling mixed with radio noise.

The two werewolves looked at Stiles for a few moments before Isaac wandered off to his own bedroom to turn in for the night. Stiles was Stiles, whether or not he was sleeping or awake. Derek stared in confusion for a couple seconds more, before he walked to the bathroom.

There, Derek readied himself to get some sleep, although he hadn’t personally gotten a comfortable night’s sleep since before the fire. His sleep consisted mainly of twisting around, battling nightmares, and waking up for large periods of time. Still, he took the time to brush his teeth and swish around some mouthwash. He also stripped himself of his day clothes and tossed them into a hamper, only to change into a pair of comfortable pajama bottoms that he typically tried to sleep in.

He re-entered the living area of the loft, ready for bed, with a knit blanket in his hands. He felt that it was the least he could give Stiles, considering the fact that he was passed out in slumber and the scent of sickness seemed even stronger than before. He would have offered Stiles more than a blanket—like some medicine—but he was a werewolf, therefore, never needed human medicine. He just didn’t have any on hand.

Derek opened up the blanket and spread it over Stiles, making sure not to wake him up. Stiles immediately gripped the edge of the sheet and pulled it tighter and closer to his neck, possibly hinting at the fact that he was cold. He wasn’t shivering, nor was he sweating. So Derek figured that he was doing fairly standard for a person with a cold.

He shut Stiles’ laptop—finally muting the awful police chatter, delivering peace to the loft. Well, except for Stiles’ horrid snoring that Derek knew he couldn’t do anything about. Unless, of course, he taped Stiles’ mouth shut and carried him out to the hallway to sleep.

As Derek turned around and began to walk towards his own bed to sleep, his attention was pulled back to the direction of Stiles—who began to mumble incoherently. Derek turned around, only to watch Stiles briefly sit up on the couch and stretch, but it was clear that he was more asleep than he was awake.

“Y’ur stubble...saved th’day.” Stiles mumbled. He scratched lazily at his chest and then slouched back down into the cushion of the couch to fall back into whatever crazy fever dream he was clearly having.

Derek scoffed a little laughter to himself and got into his own bed.

Soft sunlight poured in through the large window of the loft, washing over the interior with muted colors of yellows and oranges. It was quiet, all except for the sound of Stiles’ snoring—which had somewhat quieted down throughout the night.

Derek walked into the main living space of the loft, having been previously in the kitchen pouring himself a cup of morning coffee. In one hand, he held a cup of fresh brew. In the other hand, he had the book that he had started reading after continuously waking up during sleep. As he walked back towards his bed, he was interrupted by the sound of Stiles’ voice.

“What, no good-morning breakfast?” Stiles asked, sitting up to stretch.

“This isn’t a bed and breakfast.”

Stiles sniffled. “I didn’t even get a bed.”

“Yeah, and you didn’t get breakfast.”

Stiles’ face fell to a pout—though he wasn’t actually upset. It was nice of Derek to let him spend the night at the loft. It was even more amazing that Derek hadn’t even actually put up a fight when Stiles suggested that he’d stay at the loft to do research work.

And while Derek’s couch definitely wasn’t the most comfortable thing in the world to fall asleep on, it served as a fine resting place. Plus, Stiles hadn’t really cared considering the fact he felt worse than shit before falling asleep. Even waking up, he felt gross and groggy. Although, his cold seemed to have lessened in brutality.

“Well, I should probably clear out. It’s already—” Stiles fished his phone out of his pocket and checked the time. “—ten.”

Derek nodded from where he stood, watching Stiles push off the blanket and start to pack up his laptop. For a moment, Derek wondered if Stiles even noticed the blanket he gave him, but then he realized that it didn’t really matter. It was just a blanket.

“Did you find anything last night?” Derek asked.

“I spent the whole night listening to the local police scanner. I wrote down basically anything that sounded even remotely interesting. I figured I’d stay in at my house tonight and just weed through the information—picking out things that sound useful.”

“That’s fine.” Derek confirmed, and let Stiles be on his way.

Coincidentally, Stiles didn’t manage to scrape out any bit of useful information from the countless pages of garbage that he had typed out the night before. He was actually upset that there wasn’t more crime in Beacon Heights. Maybe then it would be easier to find and isolate alpha-related events by listening to the local police scanners all night.

A domestic dispute between a young couple outside of a nightclub, a trash can outside of a liquor store being set ablaze, a fender-bender, a lost dog...all were problems. None of which had anything to do with alpha werewolves.

Stiles spent the rest of the day hanging around his bedroom, only coming out to use the bathroom or get some snacks to eat. However, his father took it upon himself to bring up meals like lunch and dinner, so that Stiles wouldn’t have to get out of bed.

As the day drew to a close, Stiles couldn’t help but feel a little guilty that he elected to stay home instead of go out and search through the town with the others. Of course, he was still sick and the medicine that he had been taking throughout the day made him feel drowsy, but he was feeling slightly better. Despite that, he knew that he’d be no help wandering through the town with a pounding headache and aggravating sore throat.

Still, the fact that his attempt to pull leads from the police scanners weighed heavily on his shoulders. Being stuck at home, in bed, with soup and medicine, wasn’t the best way to spend a day—unless it got you out of having to go to school. In which case, a sick day was the best kind of day.

Stiles tried to stay up for as long as he could—battling with himself to not let his eyes close for more than a few seconds. He was utterly drained and needed some good rest. It was just too bad that it wouldn’t be a decent night’s sleep due to the way colds typically worked.

He wanted to stay up all night and keep in conversation with Derek via text messages. However, there wasn’t a guarantee that Derek would keep up the conversation. Also, there wasn’t really any possibility that Stiles could stay awake for another thirty minutes—let alone for the rest of the night.

With his eyelids beginning to burn in drowsiness, Stiles sent Derek a text. He let him know that all of the police scanner info pulled from the night before was a total bust. He also requested—more like demanded—that Derek text him if anything important came up throughout the night.

Stiles set his phone down on the pillow beside him and began to wait for a response from Derek, but unfortunately, Stiles was fast asleep within the next couple of minutes.

Upon grinding up to a groggy start, Stiles glanced over at his cell phone to find that he had one text message waiting for him to read. It was from Derek, who had responded to the text that Stiles had sent out before falling asleep. Albeit, it was nothing more than a simple, “okay”. It wasn’t anything special, and considering the fact that that was the only new text message on his phone, Derek and the others obviously hadn’t found anything spectacular out in the city.

Stiles lugged his aching body out of bed—wiping his drippy nose on the sleeve of his shirt.

Despite feeling gross, his cold wasn’t anything more than a slight annoyance. The sore throat had reduced itself to nothing but a minor itch in the back of his throat. His headache and fever were both completely gone, as well. The only real frustrating symptom left behind was the semi-clogged and drippy nose—both of which could be temporarily remedied with medicine.

His father had already left for work, so Stiles wandered downstairs and plopped down onto the living room couch. He turned on the TV, but it was early into Monday morning, which meant that there was nothing watchable. Most of the programming consisted of cartoons for children, morning news broadcasts, and talk shows where people talking about healthy meals and all that “fun” stuff.

He picked up the morning newspaper that was sitting on the coffee table in front of him—the one he had his feet resting on. Nobody ever really read newspapers anymore. They were outdated. On top of that, all the basic information that was typically found in a newspaper—like current events, job listings, and the weather—could all be found on the internet.

The front cover was anything but interesting. The top story was about a woman and a forty pound summer squash that she had supposedly grown. Stiles yawned. Who cared about a summer squash? Why was that the leading story in all of Beacon Hills?

While the newspaper’s front cover was boring as hell, Stiles’ attention was almost immediately gripped by the second page of the morning paper. There was a large, rather faded looking photo of a large banquet hall—full of shimmering chandeliers, black tuxedos, and long ball gowns. It was some sort of fancy party; one that Stiles clearly had no business even dreaming about getting into.

Above the enticing photo was the title of the article, written in bold, black font. It read: **“ _The Four Horsemen_ Make Their Way into Beacon Hills”**.

Stiles immediately wanted to know what the hell the article was talking about. There was a picture of a nice party, but then there was the mention of the Four Horsemen. It didn’t make sense so Stiles took his time to read through the article for a better understanding.

According to the article, “The Four Horsemen” was in reference to four very popular stones that travelled throughout the country as an exhibit—honoring various jewelry and charity auctions with their presence. Though they were never up for purchase, the rich of the rich loved to be in their company.

The nickname, however, came from the four varying stones in the collection. A diamond, blinding white— _Pestilence_. A ruby— _War_. Black Onyx— _Famine_. And a moonstone— _Death._

Reading the word, “moonstone”, only strengthened the newspaper’s hold on Stiles’ attention. Moonstones. Those were the same kind of stones that the alpha pack seemed to be obsessed with all summer. And now, a nationally famous moonstone was going to be used as an exhibit during a couples’ charity auction?

Stiles hurried back upstairs and threw on some clean clothes. He grabbed the keys to his jeep and his phone, and then raced back downstairs. There, he picked up the newspaper containing the article about the “Four Horsemen” charity auction and went over to the front door of his house to leave.

Upon opening the door, he was ready to sprint down the walkway to get into his jeep, but was ultimately halted when he found Scott standing at his doorstep, ready to knock on the door that had already been quickly opened.

“Woah...Scott?” Stiles asked, slowly lowering the newspaper down and out of Scott’s immediate sight. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be in class?”

“My summer classes ended last Friday. I have the next month off until school starts again, so did you want to hang out or something?”

Stiles gripped the newspaper in his hands harder. “I—uh—can’t. Not today. I have to go get materials to fix some stuff around the house, and I have a dentist appointment.”

It was an obvious lie.

Despite Stiles’ awesome skill at being able to lie, even to werewolves, Scott could probably tell. Scott didn’t say anything, though. He didn’t question Stiles’ ridiculous excuse. He just nodded with a smile, said that he’d find something else to do, and then jokingly wished Stiles good luck at the dentist.

On his way over to the loft, Stiles couldn’t stop thinking about how much more difficult things would be with Scott out of summer school. If he was going to continue keeping Scott in the dark, he’d have to play things smart. He’d have to plan everything—all of his own activities—carefully. If he didn’t, Scott would surely figure out that something was happening.

When Stiles entered the loft, Derek, Peter, and Isaac were training. From what he could see, Isaac was fending for himself a bit better than he had the past times during training. Maybe Derek’s ridiculous training actually worked. Except...was it mandatory to train shirtless?

“I didn’t think you would actually come today.” Derek said, halting the training session. He grabbed a towel off of his desk and began to pat down his sweaty chest. The other two wandered off to find water.

“My cold wasn’t as painful as I thought it was going to be.” Stiles said. “I’m healing...as fast as a human possibly can.”

Derek threw his towel over his shoulder and walked over to Stiles, gesturing inquisitively towards the newspaper that was gripped tightly in Stiles’ hand.

“What’s that?” Derek asked.

Stiles held out the newspaper for Derek to take. “Something you need to see.”

Derek looked at the newspaper for a while, carefully scanning the words with his eyes. He looked fairly unmoved by the material in the article, then again, that’s kinda how Derek normally looked. And since a charity auction with stuffy rich people wasn’t that interesting of a topic, Derek’s emotionless face was acceptable.

“Another moonstone?” Derek’s eyes darted around the newspaper article before looking upwards to find Stiles. “You think that the alphas will take this as an opportunity?”

“Well, I wouldn’t put it past them. They’ve become obsessed with building a moonstone collection. I bet you that they’ll at least try something at this auction.”

As Isaac’s cell-phone began to ring, he stepped away from the rest of the guys—leaving them to continue the conversation. None of them started to speak, however.

Derek looked back down to the newspaper article and began to read through it at a slow pace to capture a better understanding of the whole thing. Formal events weren’t his thing, and he definitely didn’t have plans to stroll into a gala to play secret agent jewel thief.

“The auction is tonight.”

“Then I suggest we don’t waste this opportunity to put these beasts down. They won’t anticipate our presence. We have the upper hand.” Peter said, stepping forward.

“Yes, kill the alphas right now...kill off the only people who can lead us to where Erica and Boyd are. What a wonderfully beautiful plan, Peter.” Stiles snickered, crossing his arms. “You’re a real asset to this team.”

“Enough.” Derek ordered. “We’re not crashing this auction to kill. We’re going to get answers out of them.”

Stiles took the newspaper back out of Derek’s hands. “Yeah, except how do you suppose we clear through the event’s security. Some of the country’s most famous stones are going to be on display, which means security is going to be tight. We have no tickets and all of us are single.”

“Single?” Derek asked.

“Single, as in, not in a relationship.” Stiles held up the newspaper article. “Read here, Mr. Alpha. _‘Couple’s Charity Auction’_ , meaning they’re going to be admitting couples...duos...pairings...of the romantically-involved type.”

“It’s a good thing Isaac’s single, then. You two can get into the auction with no problem.” Derek said, just as Isaac walked back into the room—shoving his phone back down into his pants pocket.

Isaac looked slightly worried—as if he was worried what Derek was going to say. “Scott just asked me to hang out.”

“He didn’t ask you, Stiles?” Peter clicked his tongue, unsympathetically. “Trouble in best-friend paradise?”

“Actually, asshole. I turned down hanging out with him to come over here and share the news. I figured you’d all want to know about this opportunity.” Stiles explained.

Stiles and Peter stared at each other with violent glares—electricity practically beamed between one another. Derek huffed and puffed in frustration, while Isaac stood silent, thumbing innocently at the sleeves of his shirt.

“Should I...tell him I can’t hang out?” Isaac asked, turning to Derek.

“No.” Derek confirmed. “Go, keep him occupied. We have this handled.”

Isaac gave a slight nod before he wandered off to his bedroom to change into some decent, not-sweaty clothes. He left the rest of the guys to talk amongst themselves about the charity event plans.

Stiles stared with his mouth gaped open at Derek. Not only was he somewhat annoyed by Isaac’s continuous insertion into his friendship with Scott, but he was also confused as to how getting into the auction would be a thing without Isaac’s company.

“That’s great. Now, how the hell are we supposed to get into the event?” Stiles asked.

Derek raised his eyebrow and shrugged in the general direction of Peter, but Stiles didn’t like the suggestion that Derek decided to make.

“No fucking way. I’m not walking into that event with this loaf of bread on my arm. He’s old enough to be my father and if I were gonna go the whole ‘sugar daddy’ route; I’d pick somebody that didn’t have a stupid goatee!” Stiles cried, letting his lips snarl into a cringe at the thought of it.

There were other opinions, however.


	12. The Charity Auction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles and Derek infiltrate the Couple's Charity Auction in hopes of catching up to the alphas. Trouble ensues.

Derek made quick work of devising the plan for the evening. He told Stiles to head back home and pick out some decent “formal” attire, and then return to the loft around six o’clock in the evening because the charity auction was set to begin at eight. Moreover, Derek said that he would find a way to get tickets for admittance into the event. Stiles didn’t bother to question the plan, because if it didn’t work, he’d get to rub it in Derek’s face for a couple laughs. The tickets would most likely be a difficult prize to snag, but if Derek thought he could do it—all was well…

Stiles didn’t have a grand selection of top notch formal wear, but he returned to the loft with what he could find around his house. He had some decent black trousers, a nice button-up white shirt, tie, black blazer, and an old pair of his father’s boots that fit him. They looked presentable.

He knocked at the loft door and waited for it to open. When it did, he came face-to-face with Peter, who was dressed in a nice suit. Of course, he didn’t like Peter, so he blew past the creep and settled into the loft to find Derek.

“Oh honey, your dashingly handsome charity auction date is ready to go—” Stiles called out loudly, but was interrupted from Derek’s gruff voice from down the loft’s hallway.

“Knock it off.” Derek said, appearing into the room—adjusting the cuff of his coat.

He was dressed in a slick looking black tux. It looked brand new—it _was_ brand new. It was tailored so perfectly to Derek’s build, it was practically mind-blowing. Stiles hadn’t expected to see Derek so...decorated. The nice suit, the slicked hair, the trimmed stubble, the metaphorical aura of killer charm radiating off of his body. It was like bumping into a male model.

“I—uh—I think I’m underdressed.” Stiles said, eyes blown wide.

“You’ve broken the boy, Derek.” Peter said, drawing closer to Stiles. He stared at Stiles’ ridiculous facial expression of awe, even going as far as to attempt poking the boy’s cheek with his index finger. Stiles quickly bat his hand away.

Derek tried to pay no attention to his uncle as he settled between the two. There was a small piece of him, deep down inside, that wanted to crack a smile because of the dumbstruck expression on Stiles’ face. He kept himself focused, though. There were more serious things to do, so he didn’t bother with the grin.

“We’re going to get into the auction and keep an eye on the moonstone. Forget about everything else. The alphas will make their move and we’ll be ready for them. Do you understand?” Derek asked, holding up two tickets.

“How the hell did you score tickets?” Stiles asked, grabbing one of the tickets.

Peter sighed. “There’s a thing in this world called money.”

“A couple backed out of the event and these tickets were unavailable for purchase.” Derek explained as he walked towards the door of the loft to exit. He urged the other two to follow his lead. Stiles, however, called for the others to halt.

“Wait a minute.” Stiles said, pausing in the middle of the loft. He dug into the pocket of his trousers and pulled out three small earplug looking devices. “I bought these at a stealth store earlier today. I think we should use them to stay in contact throughout the auction.”

“We are werewolves. I’ll be able to hear your voices from outside in the car.” Peter boasted.

Stiles’ face shifted in doubt. “Oh, really? Do you think you’ll be able to hear the two of us through the abundance of rich people chatter? And does your werewolf powers allow you to telepathically send thought to one another, because these ear pieces are also wireless Bluetooth devices, asswipe.”

“He’s right.” Derek said. “Grab an earpiece, Peter. You’ll be posted outside of the event and you’ll use this to stay in contact with us. If something happens, you’ll find your way into the event. If you sense or see another werewolf getting into the party, tell us immediately.”

Peter reluctantly took one of the earpieces out of Stiles’ hand, annoyed with the fact that he’d have to resort to using such a human device. He was sure that he’d be able to hear alpha-related commotion happening from outside of the event, but he figured that clashing with Derek’s ridiculous support of Stiles’ suggestion would only cause a headache.

When the three got down to the parking lot of Derek’s building, Derek and Peter headed over towards the Camaro. Stiles, on the other hand, went straight for his jeep.

“You’ll stick out like a sore thumb if you drive up to the event in that bucket of miserable scrap.” Peter called out towards Stiles, gesturing towards the jeep. “Wouldn’t it be smarter to avoid drawing attention to the fact that you don’t belong anywhere near the event?”

Stiles didn’t really see any reason to argue—other than the fact that he hated Peter. He loved his jeep and it had sentimental importance, but that definitely didn’t mean that he was unaware that his prized possession looked like it was ready to get sent to the junk lot. Driving the jeep up to the charity auction would have definitely turned heads…and not in the good way. If he wanted to fit in with the crowd, he’d have to drive in Derek’s sleek Camaro.

The charity auction was held in an old castle that sat up near the grand city overlook— which was a secluded location where teenagers liked to head up to and party themselves into comas before it was bought out by a couple of rich folks and turned into a resort-like escape for the money stuffed robots of Beacon Hills.

The castle was a giant structure of stone. It was even rumored to be haunted at one point in time, however, after it bought; it was completely gutted and refurbished so that nobody would ever call it a spooky mess again.

The entire property was gated off with tall stone walls and iron bars. Derek was promptly stopped at the gate’s entrance by a bulky security man who asked to scan his attendance tickets for authenticity. After getting the green light, Derek continued to drive up the well-lit cobblestone driveway, where he found the event’s parking lot.

Derek parked, switched off his headlights, and turned off his engine. From the driver's side window of the car; he could see other event attendees making their way into the castle. They were all decked out in their finest attire, which made him question whether or not the guards would even allow both himself and Stiles to enter without question.

“You’re going to stay here and listen in on the event. If something happens, find your way into the building.” Derek explained, facing Peter. “Security is tight. Don’t. Kill. Anybody.”

“Yeah, there are easier, non-lethal ways to get past security.” Stiles reaffirmed, snidely.

Peter reassured the two that he wouldn’t make any hasty decisions upon attempting to crash the auction in the event that something were to happen. With that, he put Stiles’ earpiece into his ear and let Derek and Stiles be on their way.

Derek and Stiles walked up to the auction’s entrance side-by-side up to the point where they were abruptly halted by two large guards, dressed in all black. Derek smiled— _actually smiled_ —and handed one of the guards two authentic tickets for admittance.

Stiles stood at Derek’s side, offering politeness to the other guard that Derek wasn’t interacting with. The guard remained straight-faced the entire time, not even bothering to speak. Stiles was almost positive that the bulky security dude was probably staring at him judgingly from behind the thick black sunglasses he was wearing...even though the sun was just about set.

Luckily enough, the two were allowed past the entrance security with no problem whatsoever. They made their way into the building, and Stiles made extra certain to not look suspicious as he breezed by the scary looking security. Derek didn’t have to go out of his way to look innocent; his poker face was too good.

They both made their way into the main foyer of the building, which as outrageously extravagant—far beyond anybody’s wildest imagination. The foyer was rounded like a cylinder, with walls stretching up at least forty feet to a glassed dome ceiling—showcasing the evening sky.

The walls were papered with elegant designs, and the floors were of spectacular, shiny marble. Hanging down from the glass ceiling by a long chain was probably the biggest chandeliers that Stiles had even seen with his own two eyes. The furniture and fixtures in the foyer were high gloss, expensive wood, or gold-plated metal. There wasn’t any guarantee that it was real gold, but Stiles wouldn’t put it past the owners of the castle.

Just beyond the extravagant foyer was the main ballroom, which was full of ritzy looking guests. There were many tables nicely set, some of which were already filled with those who weren’t up for ballroom dancing or mingling amongst the rest of the attendees.

“Well, what should we do first? Dance? Eat? Chat up some guests?” Stiles whispered to Derek, looking out upon the rest of the party that the two of them had yet to submerge themselves in.

“We need to locate the moonstone exhibit and keep an eye on it. They haven’t brought the _prized guests_ out for spectatorship yet, which means they’re vulnerable to being stolen.” Derek explained, scanning the ballroom for where the stones might have been located.

“Okay, then let’s start look—”

“Good evening, gentlemen!” An elderly woman walked up to both Stiles and Derek and looked at the two of them in the eyes with a warm smile. “I hope you don’t plan on watching the event from the threshold of this door. Come, take a seat. The introductory speeches are going to begin in just a moment.”

Stiles gave the woman a wavering smile, looking to Derek for an idea on what to say. “Oh, we actually have to—find the restroom.”

Derek shot his gaze to Stiles with a look of genuine disbelief.

“Together?” The woman laughed to herself. “Oh, well…back in my day I remember sneaking off with my husband to do all kinds of things! But this event is far too important for any of that. And just between you and me, honey—” She learned towards Stiles. “—by the looks of your smoldering date, I’m sure you’ll find some time at the end of the night to swing him around the bedroom.”

“We’re not looking for the restroom, ma’am.” Derek interrupted, preventing Stiles from opening his mouth and saying _anything_ …because he knew it would only lead to something disastrous. “Would you mind showing us to our table?”

The woman gave them both another smile and led them into the ballroom where they came up to a table that was already taken up by guests. There were only two available chairs left, which were the ones that Stiles and Derek were instructed to take.

The table was fairly large, and decorated nicely. It was round, covered with a peach colored tablecloth, and had a very large centerpiece in the middle that was composed of flowers and lit candles. A look around the room made it very clear that there was nothing special about the table in particular, seeing as how it was a carbon copy of all the others—straight down to the last candle.

Eight chairs surrounded the table, leaving room for four separate couples. Directly across from where Stiles and Derek took their own seats, there sat an elderly man and the elderly woman who had greeted them so boldly at the ballroom entrance. Another couple was composed of a snooty middle-aged husband and wife, who couldn’t have looked less interested in one another. And the last couple was the youngest at the table—besides Stiles and Derek. They were probably in their mid-thirties and were eagerly awaiting the introductory speeches.

“There’s no question that you two are the youngest attendees at this event.” The snooty wife said, fluttering her long eyelashes callously. “Are you sure that you’re in the right place? How far can you possibly stretch your checkbooks?”

Every fiber of his being urged Stiles to reach down into his pocket and whip out stacks and stacks of fresh hundred dollar bills—never mind how all the stacks would fit in his two trouser pockets. But unfortunately, reality loomed over his head. He wasn’t really wealthy. It was all pretend—at least it was for him and Derek.

“Oh, stop it now, Sloane!” the elderly woman shouted, glaring at the woman who had spoken. “Don’t mind her, gentlemen. She’s extremely competitive and tries to scare away competition if it means she’ll get her hands on some of the big auctioned items tonight.”

Stiles nodded triumphantly at the elderly woman’s words of advice, just to spite _Sloane_.

“I’m sorry; I didn’t catch your name. I’m Stiles.” He offered his hand to the elderly woman, who happily revealed herself to be Eloise.

“Stiles. What a lovely name. I don’t think I’ve ever met a ‘Stiles’ before.”

Derek wanted so badly to roll his eyes, but instead, he just smiled. He then made a show of slapping his hands loudly against his thighs, as if he were looking for something in his pockets that just wasn’t there any longer.

“I’m afraid that she was right.” Derek said, gesturing towards Sloane. “It looks like I won’t be able to stretch my checkbook in any direction, seeing as how I seem to have forgotten it in our car. Stiles, would you mind coming out and helping me look for it?”

Stiles looked puzzled, unsure how to follow the conversation. It was so incredibly weird to see Derek speaking in such a polite and formal tone. No growls. No demands. A charming explanation and request? Stiles was beyond dumbfounded.

“Sure.” He eventually responded, standing up from his seat. “We’ll be right back, Eloise.”

Stiles and Derek made their way out of the main ballroom and back into the foyer. They quickly took to another extension of the foyer, away from the ballroom, and eventually rounded a corner that landed them in a vacant hallway—away from everybody else.

“We’re not here to make friends with the guests, Stiles.” Derek said. He kept his eyes continuously switching back and forth from both ends of the hallway to make sure that nobody was coming.

“Yeah, well we’re not here to growl at old women and pout, are we, _my smoldering date_?” Stiles replied, crossing his arms. “And according to Eloise, apparently I’m swinging you around the bedroom tonight.”

“I’m the one with the werewolf strength…I’d be swinging you.” Derek argued back. He said it so quickly that he had completely forgotten what the hell the metaphor was actually referencing—swallowing harshly at the realization.

There was a sort of disgusted groan from Peter through the earpiece that made Derek inhale and exhale to collect his thoughts. He needed to focus on the moonstone and on the possibility that the alphas would attempt to steal it. That was the whole reason for even taking the time to attend the charity auction. He couldn’t let Stiles’ ridiculousness cloud his mind.

“We need to focus on what we really came here to do.” Derek breathed. “The moonstone exhibit is most likely being held somewhere in this building. Seeing as how it wasn’t in the ballroom, it’s probably being held elsewhere until they’re ready to bring it out to wave it around in the faces of the rich.”

“So, we just have to find a room that’s definitely going to be heavily guarded and then watch over the stones in case of an alpha werewolf robbery?”

Derek nodded in agreement.

He didn’t bother to entertain the hint of sarcasm that laced Stiles’ details of the events to come, seeing as how it wouldn’t offer anything to the mission except some extra frustration. Instead, he started to walk further down the hallway with Stiles at his side—listening to the distant ballroom chatter begin to mute as they moved further into the inners of the castle.

The castle was a maze of hallways and doors, all of which seemed to only open up to empty bedrooms with no sign of the moonstone display. There didn’t seem to be any sort of security guards pacing up and down the hallways. It seemed strange, but it also served as a potential clue that perhaps Stiles and Derek weren’t anywhere close to where the stones were being kept.

After ten minutes of opening and closing doors, only to find that dusty old bedrooms lurked behind them, Stiles and Derek mutually opted to split up—not too far from one another—to cover more ground and get closer to doing what they were supposed to do.

Derek eventually reached a dead end where there was only one door left to open. Instead of the moonstone exhibit, he found a study that happened to be significantly less dusty than all of the other rooms that he had previously searched. It was clear to him that the study was frequently used—either by the owners or by guests. None of that really mattered, however, because it was just a plain old study. There weren’t any guarded exhibits.

Suddenly, Derek heard distant footsteps heading in the direction of his location in the study. They were quick, frantic—but the sound was inconsistent with a full run. It was more like the owner of the footsteps were just trying to keep their cool and get somewhere quickly.

Derek faced the doorway, planting his feet firmly on the ground. He was ready to attack if an alpha was coming to greet him, but he didn’t extend his claws and fangs just in case the footsteps belonged to an innocent guest who probably wouldn’t want to come face-to-face with a real life werewolf.

Stiles rounded the corner into the study—breathing heavily. His eyes widened when they fixed up Derek, who was standing in the middle of the room in an attack-ready pose.

It wasn’t an innocent guest. It was Stiles. He rounded the corner into the study. He was breathing heavily and his eyes widened momentarily when his eyes fixed onto Derek, who was standing in the middle of the room in an attack-ready pose. He hadn’t expected to bump into Derek. 

“Is this the last room in this hallway? Is this a dead end?” Stiles asked, to which Derek replied with a simple confirmation.

“What’s wrong? Did you find the moonstone?” Derek asked.

“No—” Stiles started, turning around to glance at the study’s open door. “—but there’s a security officer making his rounds down this hall and he’s going to find us snooping around this study.”

“Did he see you come in here?”

“No, but that won’t matter in a minute considering there’s nowhere to hide in this office.” Stiles said, looking around the room for somewhere to hide.

While Derek began to scramble around the tiny study in search of a place to hide and think of a plan for what to do when they got caught, Stiles stood post at the door. He peered through the threshold at the approaching officer down the hall, but only put his head out enough so that he could see.

Stiles’ mind sparked an idea—an insanely wild one. It was something that could potentially get him killed, but if it worked, everything would most likely be forgiven. _It could work_...Stiles thought to himself. He bit his lip as he debated with himself in his mind. Meanwhile, Derek looked behind the curtains for a hiding place.

“How good is your acting?” Stiles asked, turning around to face Derek. “Please tell me that it’s good.”

“What are you talking about?”

Stiles didn’t answer. The non-answer could have been because Stiles’ mind was working a million miles per second to think up an idea, which left him scatterbrained as hell. But it was most likely because he was just thinking out loud. In fact, he was almost completely unaware that he had even asked Derek a serious question aloud.

He hopped up onto the large wooden desk that was in the middle of the room, facing Derek. Derek could see that something was cooking inside of Stiles’ mind, but he could see that it wasn’t something entirely finished cooking yet. That, in itself, was worrying.

“I need you to come over here and pretend like we’re getting all hot and bothered on each other.” Stiles said.

It was unexpected, yet wasn’t a joke. The tone in Stiles’ voice meant that he was dead serious. In that moment, Derek was easily able to see that the uncooked idea in Stiles’ mind had quickly come to fruition. Unfortunately, the idea was ridiculous and it wasn’t something that Derek had the intentions of going along with.

“No.” Derek refused.

“Okay, if that security guard rushes in here and catches us getting all freaky, maybe he’ll leave us alone and won’t get us into trouble. Catching people in the act must be awkward as hell. Trust me, this will work. I’ve seen it play out in a movie.”

Derek exhaled loudly. His face soured and his eyebrows creased. He closed his eyes and with another loud huff, he pulled off his suit coat with a single, harsh tug—tossing it to the ground. And as Derek rolled up the cuffs of his shirt sleeves to the bend of his elbow, Stiles pulled off his own suit coat and tossed it to the ground where he knew the security guard would be able to spot it.

Anything and everything added to the illusion.

Derek crowded into Stiles’ space—coming to stand in-between Stiles’ legs, which were spread and dangling off the edge of the wooden desk. He stood there for a moment contemplating what exactly was happening. How the hell did he get himself into this situation and what could he have possibly done differently to avoid this outcome were both very important questions that remained very prominent in Derek’s mind.

He eventually bit the bullet and leaned down, pressing his nose firmly against Stiles’ neck. He also placed one of his hands on the other side of Stiles’ neck to cradle his head. It was an awkward situation to stand there with his nose against Stiles’ neck, but it was necessary. When the security guard walked into the room, he’d see what looked to be one guy sucking off another guy’s neck in a heated, passionate embrace.

Stiles tilted his head back and slightly over to the side so that the security guard would get a good look at his face—which was morphed into what he believed to be a “totally getting pleasured right now” expression, complete with closed eyes and a gaping open mouth. His hands, however, found themselves running through Derek’s hair and raking down his back for extra flare.

“Wh—what the hell do you guys think that you’re doing in here? This area is off limits to guests!” The security guard shouted, blasting the light of his flashlight onto both Derek and Stiles.

“Oh— _mmrumhp_ —sorry, officer.” Stiles mumbled, pulling away from Derek. “We just—couldn’t help ourselves. We haven’t seen each other in months and he’s only in town for this one night.”

“You can’t do this in here.”

“Sorry. We didn’t want to disrupt the event and we didn’t think that anybody would mind us using this room for a short while…” He tried to sound as innocent as possible.

Stiles was an extremely convincing liar. He sounded believable. It took Derek by such surprise that for a mere second, he actually began to believe what Stiles was telling the security guard. The poor guy had no idea how to combat Stiles’ little story.

“I can’t just let you two wander.” the security guard continued, but his argument was losing momentum with every syllable.

“No wandering. Not one wander. We’ll stay right here.”

“Well...then...I guess I don’t see the harm in letting you guys hang around for a little while longer.” He scratched his head. “Just...eventually find yourselves back to the event. And clean up after yourselves.” He sighed and walked out of the room, shutting the door behind himself.

Neither one of them moved until they heard the security guard marching away down the hallway. Derek pulled away one the guard’s heartbeat and footsteps were sufficiently faded off into the background. Admittedly, he was still somewhat annoyed by Stiles’ plan, but he was less angry since the plan worked. He didn’t want to have to listen to Stiles chant, “I told you so” for the remainder of the night.

“This room was a total bust. Are you up for a second round…of splitting up?” Stiles chuckled and winked at Derek playfully. He got off the edge of the desk and picked up his suit coat.

Derek followed Stiles out of the study. They both stopped directly outside of the door to make sure that the security guard wasn’t just secretly waiting down the hall to drag them both out of the castle for fooling around. Derek quickly tuned into the surrounding noises with his werewolf hearing and confirmed that the guard wasn’t anywhere near. The road ahead was safe.

The two of them walked down the hallway until they reached a point where the single corridor split off into three separate paths. Following the decision to split up to cover more ground, Derek took the path to his immediate right. Stiles took the path to his left. Neither path looked any more interesting than the others. Both were dauntingly drab, as if the owners of the castle had intentionally neglected to keep up the richy-rich style throughout.

As Stiles walked down his designated hallway, he quietly mumbled to himself about how _“fun”_ it was to stalk down boring hallways instead of enjoying whatever food was being served back in the ballroom. He hummed the words to a few songs, as well. Basically, he didn’t whatever he could manage in order to keep himself occupied during the search. However, he completely forgot that both Peter and Derek could hear his mumbled mess through the earpiece...until Derek told him to shut up.

“Uh-oh…” Stiles whispered, still unsure as to what he had stumbled across. “Hey, Derek…you might want to come and find me. I think I might have found something.”

One of the doors that lined Stiles’ hallway was wide open—pouring out dim light into the main corridor. While the light was something that beckoned Stiles’ attention, there was something else. Sticking out from the where door remained slightly ajar, was a pair of legs that were lying motionless. Stiles couldn’t help but notice.

Stiles eased himself closer to the open door and the pair of legs. He remained wary of the situation, especially since he didn’t have his handy baseball bat for protection. Without even being able to see the rest of the body, Stiles could tell that the legs belonged to a security guard from the castle. The unmistakable uniform pants were the same style as the ones that Stiles had seen on the guard that had interrupted his staged make-out session with Derek.

“Stiles, don’t move.” Derek ordered. “I’m going to come find you. Did you find the stone? Are you in any danger?”

“No…” Stiles said, slightly unsure.

He stepped over the legs of the security guard and looked into the room. There were four medium-sized glass encased podiums that held each of the four individual stones. In addition, there were numerous security guards scattered around the floor of the room—just as unconscious as the one at the entrance.

“I found the stones. They’re all here.” Stiles said, circling around the podiums. “It’s weird. Something happened to all of the security guards in this room. They’re all unconscious, but the stones haven’t been touched. I guess—”

Without a moment’s notice, a burning slice of pain burst across the back of Stiles’ neck. He winced, instantly gripping the back of his neck to discover that it was beginning to bleed. His skin began to tingle with heat, his vision began to blur, and his muscles began to stiffen.

In his mind, he kept telling himself to turn around and see who had scratched him, but his body wasn’t listening to his brain. Instead, time started to slow down as he felt his legs wobble. He felt his body crash down onto the hard ground, but the pain was muted. It felt more like he had fallen onto plastic foam, not hard tile. His vision only blurred more and he eventually fell unconscious. The last thing that he heard was the distant sound of Derek asking him if he was okay through the earpiece.

When Stiles woke up, Derek was kneeling in front of him. He had propped him up to sit upright, rather than continue to lie on the ground. Derek was also calling out his name, but everything sounded so distanced—as if being shouted through a long tunnel.

Everything also felt trance-like. Stiles felt light—almost as if he could float away into nothingness. He didn’t have a care in the world, except for Derek. His mind was strongly fixated on Derek’s face; on his enchanting green eyes, his dark features, and his broad shoulders.

Stiles brought one of his hands upward and softly cradled the side of Derek’s face. He felt compelled to study it in his hand out of curiosity, and did so with a euphoric, detached-from-reality expression on his face. He didn’t understand the reasons as to why he felt the way that he did, but he just had the urge to be close to Derek.

“Hey…” Stiles murmured, nearly petting Derek’s face.

Derek attentively examined the room around him while somewhat tending to Stiles’ odd behavior. The glass podium that held the moonstone was shattered and the stone was gone. It was clear that an alpha had snatched it after rendering Stiles unconscious. There wasn’t really anything that could be done now. The stone was gone and Stiles’ state of health demanded Derek’s attention more than anything.

Derek scooped Stiles into both of his arms and took one last glance around the room. He took a whiff of the air for good measure. He hadn’t detected the scent of any rival werewolves, but he figured that it was worth an extra shot. But after failing to detect a scent the second time around, he just decided to leave.

As Derek carried Stiles out of the building, he kept his senses sharp. He ignored the strange glances that he received from some of the fellow charity auction attendees and security guards. However, nobody even bothered to stop and question him. Apparently, nobody cared that he was carrying out a fellow guest from the event.

Stiles barely moved. His body and muscles felt unbelievably exhausted, but he wasn’t uncomfortable. He was still in a dazed state, eyes flittering around in awe of the hunky brute that was carrying him bridal style out of the charity auction. As Derek walked, Stiles nuzzled his head into the bottom of Derek’s chin and closed his eyes.

“What the hell happened?” Peter shouted out the driver’s window of the Camaro, watching Derek come up to the car with Stiles cradled in his arms.

“He was scratched on the back of the neck. I think he’s been infected with something.” Derek explained, putting Stiles into the Camaro’s backseat.


	13. A Night of Wolfsbane Poisoning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek leaves it to himself to watch over Stiles for the night to make sure that he doesn't have any complications with the alpha scratches.

Derek drove straight back to the loft, deciding against taking Stiles home. If he were to do that, he would have risked the exposure of what Stiles had been up to all summer. Furthermore, he would have had to explain to Sheriff Stilinski why his son had claw marks on the back of his neck and why he was acting so bizarre.

On the way back up to the loft, Derek tried his best to ignore Stiles’ sloppy coos of affection. Most of it was just sounds, but some of it was actual words—most of which were understandable. And while Derek was able to shut out Stiles’ drunkenness, he couldn’t manage to tolerate Peter’s continuous snorts of laughter.

When everybody finally got back inside of the loft, Derek walked over to the living room and set Stiles down to lay on the couch and rest. He walked out of the living area, letting Peter momentarily watch over Stiles, and then made his way into the hallway bathroom to retrieve some items that he needed in order to properly tend to Stiles’ minor wound.

He walked back to where Stiles was lying and sat him upright, allowing access to the scratches on the back of his neck. The good news was that the scratches were nowhere deep enough to turn Stiles into a werewolf. The bad news, however, was that Derek didn’t know what the werewolves had infected Stiles with to make him act in such a bizarre manner.

“Aconitum Rotundifolium.” Peter said.

“What?” Derek asked, turning away from tending to Stiles’ wound so that he could figure out what Peter was saying.

“It’s another form of wolfsbane.” Peter explained. “If introduced into one’s bloodstream, it induces extreme infatuation with whomever the subject first interacts with after getting infected.”

Derek shook his head in frustration. “Whoever scratched Stiles must have laced their claws with it beforehand. How long do the effects last?”

“It could take several hours to fully expel itself from his system.” Peter crouched in closer to Stiles to examine his physical state. “This form of wolfsbane works through in three stages. I would say that he’s still in stage one—the honeymoon stage.”

"What are the other two stages?”

“After this stage, he’ll get extremely tired and fall asleep—the drowsy stage. Lastly, he’ll sweat out the rest of the wolfsbane through a fever—the fever stage.”

Getting Stiles back to his father was even more out of the question that it was before. It would only cause more problems and probably get Stiles into serious trouble. After all, Stiles’ father would most likely be compelled to take Stiles to the hospital. The doctors would be unable to successfully understand the problem. And since human doctors wouldn’t typically know anything about the types of wolfsbane and their effects on humans, medical tests would only lead to further confusion.

“I’ll keep him here for the night.” Derek said, crossing his arms.

Peter shrugged, buttoning up his coat in preparation to leave. “That’s probably for the best. Though, if I were you, I’d think up an alibi to give his father.” He gave Derek a slight smile and showed himself out of the loft for the night.

Derek’s attention immediately turned back to Stiles, who was still sitting contently on the couch. He wasn’t really moving, but he was awake. He was just looking up at the loft’s skylight with a dopey grin on his face. It was clear that Stiles was still in the honeymoon stage of the wolfsbane infection. Unfortunately, that meant that Derek would probably be stuck having to take care of Stiles all night.

“Stiles, give me your phone.” Derek said, holding out his hand.

“Bu—why?” Stiles laughed, clenching his hand down over his front pants pocket where his phone was located. “It’s my phone.”

“You can’t go back home tonight—not will all of that wolfsbane in your system. Now give me your phone so I can tell your father where you’ll be.”

Stiles pouted and reluctantly handed his phone over to Derek. “Y—you can’t tell him that I’m here! That’d ruin everything. Tell him I’m at a friend’s house. Tell him I’m at Danny’s.”

Derek fiddled around with the functions on Stiles’ phone until he figured out how to send out a text message. He scrolled down through the contacts of the phone until he came across a contact named, “Dad”. He tapped on the name and sent out a quick text message that said:

“I’m going to stay the night at Danny’s house tonight.”

Stiles’ phone almost immediately vibrated with a response that read: “I don’t appreciate you deciding to just stay the night at your friend’s house at the last given moment. We’re going to have a serious talk tomorrow.”

Derek shrugged off the response. After all, it wasn’t his father. He wasn’t going to be the one who would get in trouble for always staying out late and not coming home. However, Derek did feel somewhat bad knowing that Stiles would get in trouble after getting infected with wolfsbane for attempting to help Erica and Boyd. There wasn’t much that he could do.

“I’m going to get some pillows and blankets.” Derek said. “Lay here and don’t move.”

Stiles didn’t say anything. He just sat there with a wide-eyed expression on his face and let Derek wander off into the hallway to find the pillows and blankets. But just as soon as Derek was out of sight, Stiles stood up from the couch—almost toppling over into the coffee table. His balance was uneasy, but he managed to walk over towards Derek’s bed, which was across the room and in the corner.

He pulled off his suit blazer and discarded it onto the cement ground. Then he moved onto his button-up shirt. He fumbled terribly with the buttons and was unable to successfully unfasten them. He eventually managed to undo a couple buttons, but got frustrated and just forcibly pulled open the rest.

“I told you not to move!” Derek shouted from down the hallway.

“I have to change into pajamas.” Stiles said, trying desperately to pull off his tie. His mind, however, was so fuzzy that he didn’t think to pull it over his head, rather than attempt to pull it through his neck.

“Stiles, you don’t have any pajamas with you.” Derek said. He rounded the corner of the hallway and walked into the main living area where he found Stiles sitting on the edge of the bed—trying to grasp at his shoes. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to take off these damn shoes...why is this so hard to do?” Stiles mumbled. He kept reaching down to grab at his shoes, but they proved to be impossible to pull off. His coordination was wrecked.

“You’re drunk. It’s just without the unintelligible slurring.”

Derek sighed and walked across the room to where Stiles was sitting on the bed. He kneeled before Stiles’ feet and grabbed one of Stiles’ shoes—pulling it off and setting it down beside the bed. He pulled off Stiles’ second shoe and then stood up.

Stiles continued to stare at him with the same dopey smile that he had been wearing for the past hour. He couldn’t quite place his finger on the reason as to why he felt the way he did, but it didn’t matter. He felt completely relaxed and free of stress. Stiles felt as though there wasn’t anything in existence to worry about.

Derek grabbed at the loose tie that was hanging around Stiles’ neck. He started to pull it up and off of Stiles, but was quickly interrupted. Stiles’ hand came down to grasp gently around Derek’s wrist—stopping him from taking it off.

“I feel good….this feels good.” Stiles said softly. “I’m not drunk. I haven’t had anything to drink all night.”

“It’s wolfsbane.” Derek took his hand out of Stiles’ grasp. “I need you to stand up and get back to the couch. You need to sleep until this wolfsbane gets out of your system.”

Derek walked back over to the couch, but Stiles didn’t budge. Instead, he remained on the bed with the same uncaring expression refusing to fade away from his face. Derek closed his eyes momentarily in aggravation. He tossed the fresh blankets and pillows onto the couch and then walked back over to Stiles.

“Your couch is too hard.” Stiles groaned, falling back onto the mattress. He stretched his arms out and gripped tightly onto the soft sheets. “I’m comfortable here...where you sleep. We can sleep here together.”

“I’m not sleeping in the bed with you. I’ll sleep on the couch.” Derek snapped, crossing his arms. “Now, if you’re going to sleep in the bed, get under the covers, stop fooling around, and go to sleep like you’re supposed to do.”

Stiles scoffed, sitting up on the bed. He crossed his arms to mimic Derek’s own stance, hoping that it would persuade Derek into making a different decision. Unfortunately, Derek was quite unmoved by it all. He just stood there at the foot of the bed, arms sternly crossed.

“In a minute, I’m going to make you sleep on the couch instead.” Derek warned.

Stiles didn’t bother to challenge Derek’s warning for the second time around. Despite being under a feeling of pure bliss, he was still very much aware of how much he was pressing his luck with Derek. Instead of continuing on and on, he just slipped himself under the covers and let Derek wander back towards the couch.

Derek switched off the lights in the loft and then settled down on the couch. He fluffed up the pillows that he had originally brought out for Stiles to use and then laid down. Immediately after he lowered his head down against the pillows and spread the thin blanket across his body, he began to toss and turn.

He shifted his head and body into different positions, hoping that he’d eventually fall into a position that was comfortable. Stiles was certainly right—the couch was hard and undoubtedly uncomfortable. Admittedly, he felt bad about almost forcing Stiles to sleep on the couch. But eventually, Derek found a somewhat satisfying position to sleep in. He closed his eyes and attempted to drift off, but was abruptly interrupted by Stiles’ voice that called out from across the room.

“Psst, Derek.” Stiles started. “You’re not already asleep, are you?”

“Go - to - sleep - Stiles.” Derek growled into his pillow, stressing each word.

“I want to ask you a question, though.” Stiles said. He waited a few moments, listening to the silence between both himself and Derek. “Do you consider me to be an attractive guy? Like, physically, sexually, and emotionally attractive? Be honest.”

“Stiles.”

“Give me an answer.”

“No, because you’re infected with wolfsbane. You’re going to feel embarrassed in the morning, so stop talking and just go to sleep.” Derek replied.

Stiles mumbled something unintelligible as he rustled around in the sheets on the bed. He was frustrated that Derek wouldn’t give him a straight answer. He was obviously just using the wolfsbane infection as an excuse to quiet everything down, but Stiles was stubborn. It wasn’t going to work that way.

“Why is that such a hard question to answer? I asked Danny last semester with no luck. Now you.” Stiles huffed loudly.

“Stiles—”

“I think—I think that I’m going to be a virgin forever, Derek.” Stiles let out a calm, slow sigh. His voice became slightly slower as it clear that the drowsy stage was beginning to kick in. “Nobody wants to have sex with me. Everybody I know has lots and lots of sex...except me.”

Derek just closed his eyes and let Stiles continue to vent. There was no point in trying to stop him from talking. It was going to keep happening, and honestly, Derek couldn’t blame him. The wolfsbane was encouraging him to continue spilling his thoughts to the open air of the loft.

“Except me…” Stiles repeated. “Oh, and you? How are you even single? You are...a god...I would— _with you_ —definitely. Only if you wanted. Why aren’t you doing anything with anybody?”

“Regret.” Derek breathed tiredly.

The word spilled out from Derek’s lips before he even had a chance to think about it. He knew instantly that his response would probably trigger a whole slew of questions from Stiles, but he wasn’t necessarily annoyed. It felt oddly satisfying to say something so truthful. He didn’t know if he wanted to divulge pieces of his past to anybody—let alone to Stiles—but he felt comfortable.

“So...you don’t date...or fuck...cause of regret?”

As Stiles’ voice grew softer and more mumbled, Derek could tell that he wasn’t far from falling completely asleep. However, Stiles was clearly very persistent and determined to keep the conversation cooking—despite the power that the wolfsbane’s drowsy stage had.

“Yes.” Derek answered.

“Mmhmm...wha—why?”

“Being manipulated…” Derek paused, wondering if he should finish the sentence. When he heard Stiles mumble for him to continue, Derek just let it flow. “…letting yourself be dumb enough to get taken advantage of…it just makes things more difficult.”

Derek waited for a response, but only received a few feeble groans from Stiles. The drowsy stage was clearly more powerful than originally anticipated. So, instead of bothering to continue with the conversation, he just stared up at the ceiling while he laid on the couch—thinking about what he had just said.

A couple hours passed and Derek was awoken to the intense smell of sweat. He sat up and looked around the room and noticed that Stiles was still sleeping in the bed. The smell of sweat was radiating over from his direction, which made Derek remember that the final stage of the wolfsbane infection was the “fever stage”.

Derek pulled himself off of the couch and walked over to the bed. He found that Stiles was still very much asleep. The bedsheets were tossed and tangled around the mattress as if Stiles had had difficulty sleeping, but Derek’s nose didn’t detect the slightest hint of distress.

He grabbed onto Stiles’ shoulder and gently shook him. Eventually, Stiles reluctantly sat up in the bed. He whined in frustration about being thoughtlessly ripped out of his slumber, but then quickly began to complain about being sweaty and uncomfortable.

“Ugghh. _Gross_.” Stiles said, wiping across his bare chest with the palm of his hand. “Can you please turn on the air conditioner or something?”

“You have a fever.”

“Oh.” He responded softly.

Stiles looked around the darkened room, but then looked back to Derek. The blissful expression had morphed into a lessened display of happiness. Yet, for the most part, Stiles was seemingly content with the situation that he was in. He was obviously still under the effects of the wolfsbane, but luckily, he was in the last stage of its hold.

Derek wanted to rejoice, but he knew that he needed to work fast. He had no idea how the wolfsbane fever worked. What was the expected duration of the fever? Would the fever continue to get higher and higher like a normal one? Could normal medicine remedy a wolfsbane fever?

“Here, stand up.” Derek said, urging Stiles to get out of the sweat-soaked bed. “Come sit down on the couch while I get some damp towels.”

Fortunately, Stiles wasn’t in a defiant and rebellious mood—at least not at the moment. He stood up and walked over to the couch, scratching carelessly at his stomach. When he sat down, he began to toy around with Derek’s blanket while he watched Derek walk down the hallway towards the bathroom.

Derek walked hurriedly, worried that Stiles would eventually stand up and get himself into trouble. He walked into the hallway bathroom and took out some clean towels from under the sink cabinet. He ran the towels under the faucet, letting the warm water soak them, and then wrung them free of excess water.

“Derek, I feel hot!” Stiles shouted from out in the living room. Though, he didn’t sound as if he were extremely worried. He sounded more like he was getting annoyed with feeling hot.

“I know...I know.” Derek walked out from the hallway and over to the couch. “Drape one of these over your back and shoulders, and wrap the other one around your head.”

Stiles grabbed the towels from Derek’s hands and did as he was told. They felt nice and warm on his skin, lessening the uncomfortableness of the fever’s effects. He laid back on the couch and continued to stare at Derek.

In the corner of the loft was a large wooden wardrobe. Derek opened it up and pulled out a clean t-shirt and pair of jeans. He changed out of his pajama bottoms and into regular clothes as Stiles waited on the couch—silent, probably staring in awe as Derek changed.

“Stay on the couch and don’t move.” Derek instructed, slipping on his boots and a coat. “I’m going down to the corner store to get medicine, so don’t move. Do you understand?”

Stiles nodded his head in agreement and let Derek scurry his way out of the loft with no problem.

When Derek arrived back at the loft, Stiles was right where he was left. He was sitting on the couch, still wearing the damp towels like a costume, and didn’t appear to have gone anywhere in the duration of Derek’s exit.

“Here.” Derek reached inside of the brown paper bag that he was carrying. He pulled out of bottle of ibuprofen, hopeful that it would help bring down Stiles’ wolfsbane fever and keep it under control for the remainder of the night.

He shook the recommended dose of medicine out into the palm of his hand—two capsules—and handed the pills to Stiles for him to take. While Stiles took the dose, Derek stripped the bed of the sweaty bedsheets and replaced them with new ones. He was hopeful that Stiles wouldn’t sweat the new ones out of usability.

Stiles took the damp towels off of his body and handed them to Derek. As he climbed onto the fresh bed, Derek raced to the kitchen and came back with a glass of cold water. Stiles refused to get underneath the covers because of how stuffy he felt. Instead, he laid on top of the comforter in an attempt to avoid feeling even more hot than he already did.

“You need to get back to sleep and let the medicine kick in.” Derek reached down into the brown paper bag and took out a thermometer. “Put this under your tongue.”

Stiles opened his mouth and let Derek put the thermometer under his tongue. He slightly flinched at the cold metal poking underneath his tongue, but didn’t seem to really mind. When he pressed his lips together around the device he snickered, which warranted a squint of genuine confusion from Derek.

“What?” Derek asked.

“Do you—” He snorted in laughter again. “Do you always jam your pointy things into people’s mouths that hard?”

Derek huffed and ripped the thermometer out from under Stiles’ tongue. “102.” He said, coldly.

The fever wasn’t as bad as Derek had previously thought. It was still unknown as to how long the fever would last and if it would manage to get worse despite the medicine, but he hoped that things would cool down.

“You’d make a terrible doctor.” Stiles mumbled, pinching at his tongue.

“I’ll wake you up a couple more times to check your temperature.” Derek said, still standing at the side of the bed. “Get some sleep.”

While Stiles managed to score some well-needed sleep, Derek remained awake just in case something else were to happen. He woke Stiles up to check his temperature a total of four more times throughout the night, despite the fact that Stiles’ fever was shown to have lessened the first check up after the medicine had been given.

Derek just didn’t want to take risks.

Stiles was jolted awake when something hit him in the face. It wasn’t something hard—it was cloth. He immediately pulled the fabric off of his face, only to find that it was a plain black t-shirt. He looked around the loft and quickly spotted Derek, who was pulling on his leather jacket as if he were planning to leave.

“What...are you doing?” Stiles groaned, squinting at the morning sunlight.

“I’m going to get breakfast.” Derek fixes the collars of his jacket. “Are you coming or staying?”

Stiles was tired—exhausted, actually—but he wasn’t entirely willing to let some breakfast slip through his fingers. Plus, he felt pretty great considering he had been drugged with wolfsbane. It was a crazy night, but he was thankful that it was over.

He got out of bed and slipped on the t-shirt that Derek had thrown at him. He was still wearing his black trousers and dressy shoes that he had worn to the charity auction. He probably looked weird. In fact, he looked like he had just gotten back from an all-night party.

“So, where are we going?” Stiles asked, following Derek out of the loft. “And please don’t say McDonald’s.”

The two drove into the innermost part of Beacon Heights, which had a great “downtown” vibe going for it. A lot of the area looked recently built—clean and fresh. The sidewalks were clear of garbage and vibrant green trees lined the roads. Even the obviously old hotels and shops that lined the downtown strip were freshly remodeled.

It was a total step up from the neighborhood that Derek decided to call home.

Derek pulled out from the city traffic and parked in an available metered spot on the side of the road. They walked down a block or so before coming up to a seemingly popular diner named, “Vincent’s”.

When they walked inside of the restaurant, they were met with an almost full diner, crowded with business attire clothed people who were clearly getting some breakfast before heading to work. Luckily, Stiles and Derek were seated relatively soon—in a booth directly across from one another—since the diner’s work crowd began to dissipate as the clock neared eight o’clock.

Stiles grabbed one of the menus on the table and began to oogle at the breakfast options. “Okay, how come I’ve never been here before? They have everything.”

“They have your typical breakfast items—pancakes, eggs, hashbrowns, bacon, waffles…”

“Pancakes, eggs, hashbrowns, bacon, and waffles are _everything_ to me!” Stiles exaggerated with a grin. “So, order anything your little werewolf heart desires. I’m paying.”

“No.”

“Uh, yes.” Stiles argued back. “You spent all last night watching over me to make sure I was okay. The least I could do is buy you breakfast. So, hurry up and make peace with my dazzling generosity.”

Derek didn’t argue. Instead, he gladly accepted the offer and ordered when the waitress came around to their table. He didn’t pick anything too expensive since it was on Stiles’ dime. But it was a whole lot cheaper than having to sit and be pestered by Stiles if he hadn’t taken Stiles’ offer.

When the waitress left, the two of them sat silently at the table for a couple minutes and casually sipped at their complementary coffee from time-to-time. Stiles awkwardly fiddled around with his fingers, clearly plagued with wanting to say something but didn’t know how to do it.

“I should thank you for being my own personal protector last night.” Stiles started. “Wolfsbane poisoning is a bitch.”

Derek hummed in agreement.

“I should—uh—also apologize for saying all of those stupid things I said last night.” Stiles scratched at the back of his neck. “I got a little _suggestively_ crude, I know. I guess the wolfsbane loosened my tongue, but made me obsess over the stupid things on my mind.”

Derek felt a twinge of worry shock his insides, but only momentarily. He hadn’t expected Stiles to actually remember the conversation from the night before. If Stiles remembered all of the things he had said, then that meant he probably remembered what Derek had talked about. That included what Derek had foolishly let slip about his own regretful decisions. Nevertheless, he didn’t think Stiles would bring it up, seeing as how they were random, off-handed remarks spoken as Stiles drifted to sleep.

“You obsess about trivial things.”

“Isn’t it a normal thing to be somewhat worried about being alone forever?”

“No, you’re just not normal.” Derek shrugged casually, taking a sip of coffee. “There’s tons of people in the world who are perfectly happy not having sex.”

“Jeez.” Stiles crossed his arms. “Is it some kind of werewolf nature to be such a constant downer?”

The waitress walked back up to their table with a tray of food and set down the hot plates. Both Derek and Stiles quickly thanked her before she walked away, leaving the two of them to continue sitting in such tense silence.

Derek grabbed his fork from off of the table and began to eat his eggs. If his facial expressions were anything to go by, he wasn’t angry. Although, it was clear that he was somewhat frustrated. There was a large piece of him that just wanted to enjoy his breakfast.

“It’s not werewolf nature.”

“Oh, so it’s just ‘Derek’ nature?” Stiles questioned. “I mean, are you still bitter about your first time or something? You mentioned getting manipulated. Clearly, you guys broke up. Why are you still hanging onto the past? Whoever they were has probably moved on already.”

Derek stopped chewing and stared across the table at Stiles for a cold, long moment. Eventually he swallowed his food and set his fork down on his plate. He couldn’t believe that _this_ conversation was coming up—in a public diner of all places.

He regretted telling Stiles his secret. It was something that he had never told anybody, not even to his own sister back when she was still alive. It was his secret...his pain...only to be his. But, he fucked up and let it spill to Stiles. There wasn’t any covering it up.

And while he did trust Stiles now—to some extent—he didn’t know if he trusted him _this_ much. The fact that Stiles hurled around those words without even knowing anything stung horribly. The assumptions were wrong and the casual attitude only made things worse. But Derek knew that he couldn’t blame Stiles for not fully understanding. After all, he wasn’t the one with the whole picture.

There was this odd feeling in his stomach that sliced through his entire body. It was something that he hadn’t felt since high school. The feeling of worry—worry that somebody will look at you differently when they know something more about you.

Derek wasn’t extremely close to Stiles. They weren’t best friends. If anything, they were only newly formed allies. Yet, Derek couldn’t shake the feeling of dread. He didn’t want to see Stiles’ face churn with pity and disgust and shock upon hearing the full truth. And it was a weird thing to feel, considering how many years Derek went without caring how people looked and him and judged him.

“What do you think of when you think of the word ‘monster’?” Derek asked.

“Um, scary fangs, chomp chomp biting...disturbingly vicious looking...dripping with strange goop...also energy drinks.” Stiles explained.

“That’s the problem. Monsters can be beautiful, mesmerizing creatures—full of allure.” Derek said, not looking in the direction of Stiles’ eyes, but rather down to the black and white checkered floors to the side of him.

“And your manipulative first was a beautiful monster?”

“I met her when I was sixteen. I was a junior in high school and she was a student teacher in my history class. We dated for a little over a year. She convinced me to keep it from my family, so I did.” Derek paused, staring solemnly at his plate of food. “I was blind to what she was and to what she was doing. My meaningless teenage crush...my desperation to grow up...is what destroyed my home...my family…”

“Wait...you mean that—” Stiles stopped himself, as he already knew the answer.

It was extremely hard for Stiles to listen to the words coming out of Derek’s mouth, but he realized just how much harder it probably was for Derek to actually reveal that piece of his past. No wonder Derek was so reluctant to trust people. After something like that happening to you, trusting wouldn’t come easy again.

Kate Argent was the one who burned down Derek’s home and murdered his entire family in the process. And if that wasn’t enough, she used him and tricked him into trusting her so that she could do what she did. She manipulated him. She betrayed him.

“Derek…” Stiles said quietly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t mean to—I just didn’t mean to sound so uncaring…like I didn’t understand and—”

“You don’t understand and it’s good.” Derek explained. “I never want you or anybody else to be able to understand…because then it means you’d have to go through what I did. It’s fine. You don’t need to apologize.”

Derek waved off the whole ordeal. He wasn’t angry or upset with Stiles for being the one to foolishly steer the breakfast conversation into something as deep as Derek’s past. All he really wanted to do was move onto finishing his breakfast, rather than dwell on his scars. He didn’t want any apologies from Stiles. It wasn’t his fault.

The rest of the breakfast was awkward. It was quiet, with the exception of Stiles attempting to crack a few jokes to break the tension. However, Derek didn’t do much but continue to enjoy his meal. Stiles owned up to his promise of paying for the meal and shelled out payment with the addition of a tip before the two headed out.

The drive back to the loft was equally as awkward, but Stiles just let it be the way that it was. His mind was still wandering with what transpired at the diner. He felt the urge to apologize multiple times, but Derek didn’t seem offended nor did he seem all growly and upset like usual.

Nonetheless, Stiles couldn’t help but feel as if Derek officially trusted him more than he previously had. The Derek he knew before the summer started would have never trusted him enough to reveal such a private and serious secret. It made Stiles a little happy to know that Derek trusted him—to some extent.

It meant something because Stiles also trusted Derek…to some extent, as well. The growing relationship as friends or teammates or allies—whatever—was actually something that meant a lot to Stiles. Whatever was happening between the two of them was entirely different than any of the other friendships that Stiles had experienced throughout his lifetime.

He liked it.

Stiles and Derek pulled into the parking lot of Derek’s building at the exact same time that Isaac was walking into the lobby of the building. He had probably spent the night at Scott’s house, which was why he hadn’t come back the previous night during Stiles’ poisoning.

Isaac noticed Derek’s camaro driving up and waited around in the empty lobby until the two of them made their way inside of the building. After all, he didn’t have a key to get back inside of the loft. He had to wait for Derek to come along anyways.

The three took the elevator up to Derek’s floor. There was no question about the strange tension in the air, considering what had happened back at the diner. It was clear that Isaac was picking up on something, but just didn’t want to be the one to bring it up. Stiles decided to just let everything settle and not mention anything. Derek seemed like he just wanted things to get back to the way they were before the whole conversation in the diner.

Derek pulled open the loft’s door, letting both Stiles and Isaac to be the first ones to slide into the room. It smelled pungent with the scent of dried sweat. Derek realized he probably should have left some windows open to air the place out.

“I’m not even going to ask why your bed sheets are thrashed and it smells like _his_ sweat.” Isaac said. He gestured over towards Stiles as he talked to Derek.

“Yeah, well I’m not even going to ask why you spent the _whole_ night at Scott’s house.” Stiles argued back. The two stared at one another while Derek just shook his head at the immaturity.

Isaac turned back towards Derek. “Anyways, how was the auction? Did you manage to get any answers out of the alphas?”

“The alphas were in and out of that auction before we had a chance to do anything.”

“Well, not before one of them poisoned me.” Stiles added.

Isaac snickered under his breath. It almost made Stiles want to knock the curly-headed werewolf flat on his ass. However, he could see that Derek was already growing tired with the unnecessary bickering, so he didn’t bother to respond.

“If that didn’t work, what’s our next step?” Isaac asked.

“We continue doing what we’ve been doing. We’re going to continue our sweep through the city until we find something—and we _will_ find something.” Derek stated firmly.

It was good to see that Derek was still focused on finding Erica and Boyd. He was definitely one of the most driven people that Stiles knew. Other than his father, who wouldn’t put down a case until it was officially solved, Derek was relentless with locating Erica and Boyd.

“And on that note—” Stiles started, walking over towards the bed. He collected his discarded shirt that he had worn to the auction. “—I guess I’ll see you guys tonight for a prowl through the town.”

He walked towards the door of the loft, giving one last thanks to Derek for all that he did the night before. Derek nodded in acceptance and graciously moved out of the way for Stiles to exit, and then shut the door behind him.


	14. Reminiscent of the Good Old Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles sits down with his father for an important talk. The day appears to be somewhat...normal.

Upon arriving back at his own home, Stiles found it strange that his father’s police cruiser was parked out in the driveway. After all, his father should have been at work—hunting down bad guys. As he walked up to the front door, he flung his old shirt over his shoulder and prayed that he wasn’t in serious trouble.

He walked into the foyer of his house and tried to remain as quiet as possible. He could hear that his father was watching television in the living room, so he closed the front door as silently as he could, and then attempted to walk upstairs to get to his bedroom without getting his name called.

“Nice try.” John called out, stopping Stiles dead in his tracks. “I heard you come through the door. You remember my text. I told you there was going to be a talk when you got back. Now come back down here for a moment. I want to talk to you.”

His father sounded fairly calm, but not the kind of calm tone that a parent used before they were about to ground their children for a year. He didn’t sound angry, upset, or worried. It made Stiles somewhat curious as to what his father wanted to talk to him about. And despite the fact that his father didn’t sound upset, Stiles was still pretty certain that he was in trouble. For what, he didn’t yet know.

Stiles rounded the couch and stepped into the living room. His father switched off the television, still sitting in the couch. He gestured over towards a vacant recliner and told Stiles to sit down. Stiles did as he was told and sat down, setting his last-night’s dress shirt on the arm of the chair.

“Stiles—do you—um—” John continued on with his stream of unfinished beginnings to sentences, unable to figure out how to properly begin what he wanted to say. “This is more tedious of a task than I originally thought.”

“Did something bad happen or something? Did you get in trouble at work? Did they take away your badge again or something?” Stiles began asking in rapid fire, beginning to think the worst.

"Okay, here it is.” John said confidently, pausing for a second. “I’ve noticed you’ve been spending a lot of time with Danny lately. Especially with the last minute decisions to spend the night at his house. Coming home the next morning wearing a shirt that clearly isn’t yours—”

“Wait—what? Dad…”

“Stiles, let me finish.” John interrupted. “I want to make it very clear that the rules of safe-sex still apply between two guys. You always wear protection no matter what. No matter what you’ve seen on the internet...on websites...you always wear a condom. The same goes for Danny, too.”

Stiles was speechless for one of the few times in his life. He was completely thrown off by his father that he could barely understand what was even happening. It took his brain a minute to assess the problem and thoroughly digest it in a way that Stiles could accept.

No, he wasn’t dating Danny. No, he wasn’t screwing Danny, either. However, he could see how his father was getting that impression. He had used the “I’m staying the night at Danny’s” excuse to cover up his off-hours werewolf hunt activities a couple times. And yes, he was wearing a shirt that wasn’t his...but the sex talk? Really?

Stiles was stuck between a rock and a hard place. He was either in an intensely sexual relationship with his classmate—albeit, Danny wouldn’t be a bad catch— or he was running around during the night with Derek Hale, his psychotic undead uncle, and another werewolf. And there was no way in hell that he was going to reveal the supernatural to his father.

“Danny’s nice…” Stiles confirmed. “...and we’re always safe.”

“So, that night outside of the gay club, when you said you could be gay—” John slowly began. He suddenly realized that he may have made a huge mistake shutting down his son that one night.

“Uh—no.” Stiles responded.

The response was somewhat instinctive. The words came out of his mouth sounding unsure, but Stiles knew that he wasn’t confused. He felt comfortable, as if he had already had the same conversation with himself numerous times. He knew how to respond. But he did feel compelled to take a step back and analyze the situation.

He knew that he wasn’t gay because he loved girls. He was _very_ much attracted to them and very much turned on by the ones he thought were attractive. There was no denying that. Plus, his long term crush on Lydia was enough to prove that to himself.

However, Stiles knew the way that he felt about guys. He liked them in the same way that he liked girls—he loved them. His mind shot back to all of the times that he thought about guys, fantasized about them, dreamed about them…it was just all too vivid in his mind. Stiles just hadn’t ever been asked about his sexuality. Nothing was ever assumed and Stiles never thought to explain himself.

When Stiles thought about it, though, he realized that he never actually questioned his own sexuality. It was never confusing for him. There was never anything to ask about. He couldn’t remember a single instance where he felt confused about looking at girls and guys and being just equally amazed and happy that he felt genuinely attracted to the two.

“I’m not gay.” Stiles further confirmed. “I’m bisexual.”

“Okay.” John nodded, proud of his son’s confident statement. “Well, if you have any questions or ever need to talk about something that’s going on, you don’t have to sneak around. You can talk to me.”

Stiles didn’t have anything to say about his sexuality. He didn’t have questions. He knew who he was and what he liked. He also didn’t have any questions about how sex worked or anything like that. He was still a virgin, but he was pretty sure he’d be able to figure out the ropes pretty easily when that time came around.

However, there was so much Stiles wanted to talk to his father about. If he could just tell his father about the supernatural world, about Derek, about the mysterious alpha pack who kidnapped two innocent teenage werewolves...things could be easier.

With his father’s power behind the police force in Beacon Hills, they could probably team up with the station over in Beacon Heights and conduct a thorough search for both Erica and Boyd. Maybe then the two of them would be found and safely returned to their homes. Locating the alpha pack and the missing betas was a hard job for just four people, despite three of the four being werewolves.

He knew that he couldn’t reveal the truth to his father, though. If the alpha pack was as dangerous as Derek made them sound, he couldn’t get his father involved. That would only put him in an extreme amount of danger, as well as it would expose Derek and Scott as werewolves—a species only known to myth.

There was too much risk.

The two hugged it out, with John thinking that he had everything figured out and Stiles struggling with the idea of having to pretend as if he was in a romantic relationship with Danny Mahealani. He just hoped that he’d never have to tell Danny about the embarrassing lie and have to play boyfriends in front of his father to keep the ruse living. If worse came to worse, Stiles could always make up another lie about him and Danny calling it quits.

Stiles eventually wandered up to his bedroom. His father had apparently taken the day off or something, because he wasn’t wearing his uniform and he didn’t head back to work even after the conversation downstairs. It wasn’t like Stiles was planning on going anywhere—not until around midnight, at least—but it was frustrating because what if Derek called with urgent “get over to the loft” news?

Instead of worrying about it too much, Stiles decided to stay up in his bedroom and log some hours on his favorite online role-playing game. He used to play it all the time back in ninth and tenth grade, but that was before Scott got turned into a werewolf and suddenly the entire world seemed to revolve around supernatural bullshit.

He was about two complete hours into playing his video-game, when he began to notice the sound of faint taps at his bedroom window. They weren’t the taps you’d expect from fingernails, but rather from tiny rocks that were being tossed up to hit against the glass. Stiles paused his game and walked over to see who the mysterious rock-thrower was.

Stiles was surprised to find that it was Scott. He was standing innocently on the lawn below, wielding a lacrosse stick in his hand. Scott wasn’t paying attention to the window anymore—maybe he ran out of tiny rocks to throw. Instead, he was kinda just standing there and waiting for Stiles to either open the window and speak or come downstairs to meet him.

Quickly, Stiles thought of an unbearably witty response. He opened up his bedroom window and began to yell down towards Scott—attempting to draw his attention.

“O Rock-Thrower, Rock-Thrower! Wherefore art thou, Rock-Thrower?”

Scott spun around and looked back up to the bedroom window. “Hey, do you wanna go practice some lacrosse or something? I’m bored.”

“Yeah, sure.” Stiles accepted. “I’ll meet you downstairs in a couple minutes.”

Stiles closed the window and locked it tight. He walked over to where his dresser was and starting picking through the drawers. He wasn’t looking for anything particular, just something to replace last night’s auction clothes and Derek’s borrowed t-shirt. Stiles changed into some jeans, a t-shirt of his very own, some sneakers, and grabbed his lacrosse stick before charging downstairs.

When Stiles got back downstairs, his father was in the kitchen washing dishes. He tried to sneak past without having to hear his father call back his name, but just like the first time, it didn’t work. His father’s sheriff senses were just too difficult to get past.

“Where are you going, Stiles?” John shouted out, turning off the kitchen sink.

“I’m just going out to practice lacrosse with Scott.”

John rounded the partial wall that distinguished the boundaries between the kitchen and the foyer— where Stiles was waiting eagerly by the front door. He crossed his arms and gave his son a stern look, not totally convinced that lacrosse practice was the truth. Especially not after the conversation that they both had had not more than two hours ago about Stiles’ late-night rendezvous with Danny.

“Stiles…” John started, his voice resounding with a hint of doubt.

“Okay, Dad…I’m just going out to practice lacrosse.” Stiles explained, holding up his lacrosse stick. “I’m not sneaking out to be with Danny…”

There was a couple moments of silence following Stiles’ declaration and then John just nodded. He gestured towards the door with his arm, allowing Stiles to leave. It was okay. He believed his son to a certain extent. And although one of Stiles’ best skills had to be his ability to lie his way out of almost anything, John refused to be one of those parents who caged their children at the moment’s notice that they were growing up and forming relationships. Just as long as Stiles was being safe and smart, which he knew would be the case, he was willing to let his son explore.

Outside of the Stilinski residence, Scott was standing out in the front of the garage with his lacrosse stick in his hand. Stiles gladly met up with him, patting him on the back as they two of them started walking towards the empty field at the end of their neighborhood.

It felt odd walking side-by-side down the empty neighborhood streets with the hot summer sun beating down on their bodies from above. It felt extremely reminiscent of their times hanging out together before all the supernatural junk started taking over their lives. Even the summer had been invaded by supernatural forces—well, Stiles’ summer had, even though he was human.

“I think this year is going to be great.” Scott said, staring down at his shoes as they walked against the pavement. “All the problems are gone. We finally got back our normal lives. No psychotic Derek’s uncle. No kanimas. No Gerard. It’s done.”

“Yeah, we’re juniors now.” Stiles smiled, trying desperately not to look completely disappointed on Scott’s behalf. Scott seemed so excited, but he wasn’t aware of everything that was happening behind his field of focus.

“I’m thinking about doing something cool before school starts again.”

“Like what?”

“Well, I’ve saved up enough money to get this bike I’ve been looking into buying.”

Stiles looked confused. “Scott, you already have a bike.”

“No, I know!” Scott chuckled. “There’s this awesome motocross bike at this used vehicle lot downtown. It’s pretty cheap, already street legal, and the dealer said he wouldn’t mind giving me a discount.”

“That’s cool. It’s your money, dude. Plus, I bet you’ll pick up some hot girlfriends with that roaring motor.” Stiles clicked his tongue and let out a purring growl under his breath.

Scott nudged him playfully. “I’m not really looking for anybody...not right now. But, I don’t know. Maybe this school year will be different. A new beginning.”

Stiles didn’t say anything more. It was too difficult to listen to Scott’s hopes that the upcoming school year would be different when Stiles was already very well aware of the lingering alpha pack problem. At any moment they could attack. They could come after Scott or Lydia or anybody else that had something to do with the supernatural happenings in Beacon Hills.

Once the two of them arrived at the empty field, they started tossing and catching the lacrosse ball back and forth. The field that they were using didn’t have any net goals, unlike the field over at Beacon Hills High. However, they weren’t really focused on practicing goal scoring. They were both much more determined to practice and invent new footwork to psych out their opponents.

They—well, Stiles—had just recently won the last game of the past season for the Beacon Hills Cyclones. If Coach Finstock was as smart as he liked to brag about, then he’d probably consider Stiles as the captain or co-captain of the team. And just in case something like that were to happen, both Stiles and Scott needed to be ready to make the top spots.

By the time one o’clock in the afternoon struck, the two were tired and hungry. There was only so much practicing that could be done in one day. Eating, however, was a totally different story. There definitely wasn’t any limit to how much food could be eaten in one day—at least, Stiles didn’t think so...especially when he was starving.

There was a restaurant called, “Burger Plaza” a couple blocks away, so Stiles and Scott walked over to snag some food. It was a fast food establishment with tons of cheap, greasy food. If you chose correctly, you’d have had a tastebud orgasm. But if you chose wrong, it meant possible food poisoning. Yet, the joint stayed open for business because people loved picking up cheap food after work and not bothering to cook. It worked.

“So, what do you think Derek’s been up to lately?” Scott asked, taking a handful of french fries out of the red plastic basket they were severed to him in.

“I don’t know...probably barking at birds or something.” Stiles shrugged, taking a drink of cola.

“I wonder if he’s still pissed about what happened with Gerard.”

“You fucked him over.” Stiles said.

He said it quickly and completely unfiltered. It just sort of slipped out of his mouth, almost like his mind had been wired to defend Derek’s honor in an instant. _It was_. Although, Stiles couldn’t figure out when it happened.

He had just spent so much time with Derek, learning to understand him, learning to care for him...he didn’t want to think about Derek getting used. And especially with what Derek had said about his past—with everything that happened—with _Kate_ —Stiles’ appetite suddenly made a disappearing act.

“What you did…” Stiles continued, pausing slightly. “It was really...just... _fucked_.”

“I’ll apologize.” Scott confirmed. He sat there motionless for a moment, clearly letting the gears in his head crank themselves into an idea. “Do you think Derek’s at home right now? I could go apologize to him on the way back.”

Stiles’ eyebrows creased harshly. “Scott, his house is like...fifteen miles away. It’s out in the middle of the woods and we’re on foot.”

“We have nothing better to do. It’s exercise, too.”

“Yeah, exercise. A fifteen mile walk is the perfect amount of exercise...for a werewolf with werewolf stamina and endurance. Not a human like me.” Stiles ate some of his burger. “Plus, he’s probably not even home. Who could stand to hang around that house all day?”

“Stiles, how are you supposed to be lacrosse co-captain if you can’t endure a walk.” Scott questioned. “We’re going.”

Stiles was just about to throw his hands up in the air and surrender to Scott’s idea of traveling down to Derek’s beautiful home—the one he wasn’t even living in anymore. But just as he was ready to accept, Stiles’ brain zoned in on where _exactly_ Scott wanted go.

He wanted to go to Derek’s “house”. The Hale House. The house with the dazzling bright red door with the _totally not_ noticeable big bad alpha pack triskelion threat painted on the front of it. They couldn’t go down to Derek’s house. It would only spill the beans to Scott about the present threat in Beacon Hills. It could complicate everything that was already going on behind the scenes in terms of finding Erica and Boyd.

“How about we do that another day?” Stiles had to make something up on the dot, which was something that he was actually quite skilled at doing. “I just got a new expansion pack for ‘Vampires with Guns’. You have to play it with me.”

Naturally, it was a lie. Stiles hadn’t technically _just_ acquired the new expansion pack for the game. He had actually gotten it in the mail about three months ago, but he hadn’t had the time to actually play it because of everything that was going on.

“Okay, we can get in some hours of playing.” Scott continued eating. “But I’ll have to leave a little bit before it hits five, because I start back up at the animal clinic today.”

After they finished their lunch, the two walked back to Stiles’ house. They played the video game that Stiles had mentioned back at the restaurant, killing off a good couple hours. The game could have stretched on for many more hours—possibly for into the early hours of the morning—but when four-thirty came around, Scott had to go back home and get ready for work.

Immediately after Scott left to head back to his own house, Stiles put the plan that he had been secretly cooking in the back of his mind since Burger Plaza to work. The front door of the old Hale house wasn’t something that Stiles had thought about all summer, but when he really thought about it, the door could pose a potential problem. At any given moment, Scott could wander over to the house and see the mysterious triskelion—pushing him into the whole alpha pack mess.

Stiles hopped into his jeep and drove down to a hardware store. He brought a can of red paint and a thick paintbrush, which he planned to use in his quest of painting over the alpha pack’s calling card. He just hoped that covering it up wasn’t some sort of crime against werewolf code that would get himself targeted. He seriously doubted that the alphas would use wolfsbane poisoning as punishment again.

When he got back home, he left the paint and brush in his car so that his father wouldn’t question him about his sudden desire to be an artist. Later that night, once his father went to bed for the night, Stiles planned on sneaking over to the Hale house and painting the door. He’d probably be a little late over to the loft, but it would be fine. Derek would understand.

Stiles stayed cooped up in his bedroom up until he was hungry for dinner. He ventured downstairs into the kitchen with the intention of cooking something for both himself and his father, but then he heard footsteps racing down to the first level of the house.

Sheriff Stilinski stepped into the kitchen, dressed completely in his work uniform. He was obviously getting ready to head off to work, yet seemed flustered as he frantically scanned the countertops for the keys to his police cruiser.

“Have you seen my keys?” John asked, fixing the collar to his shirt.

“Uh, no.” Stiles said, shutting the refrigerator. “Why? I thought you didn’t have work today.”

“I—uh— _didn’t_. That didn’t stop them from calling me in for a night shift. I’ll be back sometime probably later tonight.” John found his keys and stuffed them into his pants pocket. “Now, I expect to _not_ receive any text messages from you telling me that you’ll be spending the night at Danny’s...okay?”

“Sure thing.” Stiles confirmed. “No sleepovers.”

John pointed at Stiles, silently reaffirming what he had already said. He just wanted to make sure that Stiles understood perfectly. He grabbed his jacket that was hanging off the edge of a dining chair and hurriedly made his way out of the house, locking the door behind himself.

Stiles snuck a peek out through the window’s blinds while he watched his father’s police cruiser pull out of the driveway and drive out of sight. He wanted to make sure that his father was completely gone before he ran back upstairs to his room, grabbed his own coat, and then headed out towards the old Hale house.


	15. "I'm an Alpha, and this is my Alpha House"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles takes up painting. Both Stiles and Derek get an interesting lead from a strange, unexpected source.

“Hey, I’ll probably be coming over a little earlier tonight.” Stiles held his cell phone to his ear, steering carefully down the dirt road to the Hale house whilst talking to Derek. “I have to stop by your house first, though. Well...your old house.”

“The sun is already going down, Stiles.” Derek stated. There was a slight tick of worry mixed with his voice. “What the hell are you driving out there for?”

“Your front door is a problem.”

“What?”

“You know, that wooden thing that swings open to allow entrance and exit? The thing on the front of your house. The rectangular wooden slate with the big alpha pack triskelion painted on it! The triskelion that’ll make Scott ask us a billion questions about.”

Derek huffed. “Scott doesn’t know about the door.”

“No, he doesn’t, and it’s all thanks to me.” Stiles forced a laugh. “We hung out today and he wanted to stop by the Hale house for a little chat with you. Luckily, I remembered the alpha pack’s little art exhibit and persuaded Scott not to go. But who knows when he’ll end up going? It’s better just to cover up this little risk.”

“Do you have a weapon with you?”

“Suuuure— yep.” Stiles said mindlessly. He hadn’t really heard Derek’s question because his mind was focused on parking the jeep in front of the house. “Anyways, I’ll call you after I’m done over here.”

“Wait—Stiles. _Stiles!_ ”

It was too late to catch Stiles’ attention, because he already disconnected the phone call. Stiles parked the jeep in front of the Hale house, making it face the front porch. He left on the headlights of the jeep so that he would be able to efficiently see what he was doing in the darkening woodland.

He jumped out of the jeep and walked around to open the trunk. He pulled out the can of red paint, the paint brush, and his baseball bat. He was almost certain that the alpha pack wasn’t going to be hanging around Derek’s old property, but he wanted to be safe just in case. The only thing he knew for sure was that he was _not_ going to be scratched on the neck again.

It was the strangest feeling to sit out in the middle of the woods, stand on the porch of an abandoned house, and struggle to pop open the top to a can of paint. Eventually, Stiles managed to stab open the can of paint with the tip of his house key—flinging the can’s lid across the porch. He dipped the new paintbrush into the mixture and then began to spread the new color against the wooden door in even strokes.

There was an eeriness to the whole event. The woods were quiet, except for the occasional gust of wind that would wash over dried grass and rattle the tree branches. Other than that, the surrounding area was quiet. Stiles spent most of the time listening to the scratchy sound of the paintbrush getting dragged across the charred door.

Though, there was something peaceful and satisfying about covering up the chipping paint with a new layer. And it was especially satisfying to paint over the alpha pack’s triskelion—as if erasing them from existence. Stiles didn’t really want to dwell on the fact that the alpha pack was looming around, but he knew that tough times were surely coming.

Stiles was done repainting the door after about fifteen minutes. He resealed the open can of paint with the lid that he had accidentally flung across the porch, picked up all of the items he had, and carried them back to put them away in the jeep’s trunk. He slammed shut the trunk and walked around to the driver’s side car door. He gripped the door handle and tugged it open, but didn’t hop inside.

He couldn’t help but have his attention diverted back to the massive house before him. His body was bound with curiosity. It occurred to him that he had never actually explored through the house, despite all the tales he heard about it back in sixth grade about it being haunted. Not even during Halloweens did he wander over down to the old abandoned Hale house with all the idiot kids in his grade who wanted to “talk to ghosts”.

Stiles shut the door to the jeep and jogged back up to the front porch. He debated for a moment about actually stepping inside. He didn’t know what he’d stumble across, but the temptation was too strong. So, he grabbed onto the front door handle—making sure not to touch any of the wet paint—and pushed the door open.

It was surprisingly seeable inside the actual house, but that was because there were numerous holes in the roof that allowed for the setting sunlight to shine through. Stiles looked around from where he stood in the foyer. It was very clear that fire had scorched off all types of existing paint and wallpaper, considering that everything was now reduced to scorched wooden support walls.

On the downstairs level, Stiles stumbled into what was some sort of dining room or library. There was a rickety old wooden table and tons of built in bookshelves lining the walls from floor-to-ceiling. There weren’t any books, however, because Derek obviously took those with him when he moved into the loft. A large hole in the ground took up a lot of space in the room, but so did all of the wild wolfsbane and mirrors that was scattered around the place.

He passed his way through what was once the kitchen, a couple bathrooms, a family room, and multiple bedrooms—some of which were located upstairs. However, the fire took out everything. Stiles was only able to piece together which rooms were which due to various unsalvageable and charred pieces of furniture found in some of the rooms. Like the loveseat remnants in the family room, or black mattresses with melted springs sticking out in all directions that were laying around some bedrooms.

Admittedly, Stiles tried his best to figure out which bedroom used to belong to Derek. Though, there just wasn’t any possible way of figuring it out. Everything was destroyed. The house was a wasteland of charred wood and furniture. Walking around and taking everything in made Stiles’ stomach tighten. It was hard to imagine living in such a wonderful house with you family and then having it all ripped away from you.

Downstairs, Stiles stumbled upon a closed door that was located directly behind the staircase. He opened it, only to find another staircase that lead down into total darkness. He reached down into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone so that he could use its light to shine the way as he stepped down. When he reached the bottom, he found himself in an old basement.

The basement was a huge place that looked more like a torture chamber than a stereotypical basement. There were chains and shackles hanging from the cement ceiling down to the cement floor. There were rotted wooden crates of old jars, filled with different things. It was cold and smell heavily of mold. Stiles’ best guess had to do with the water that was trickling in through cracks in some of the walls. Stiles realized that this was probably where the hunters held Derek the night Peter ended up getting killed.

The chains and shackles and jars were strange to find, but there was something else that caught Stiles’ attention. On the far left side of the basement, there was a large metal door—somewhat similar to the door at Derek’s loft. There was definitely something behind it and Stiles wanted to know what it was. After all, he had already spent enough time exploring the house; why not explore it a little further?

Stiles unlocked and hurled open the metal door—sliding it down along its track until everything behind the mysterious metal was revealed. To his own surprise, it was the entrance to what looked to be a long tunnel. Where it led? Stiles didn’t know. Nonetheless, he figured that it probably led far, far away from the foundation of the actual house.

He wanted to know where it led. Perhaps it led all the way to the other side of town. Maybe it was some sort of escape tunnel during some type of werewolf war during the 1600’s. He didn’t know. Stiles debated with himself on whether or not to just start walking down the tunnel and see where it eventually lead, but decided against it on account of wanting to get over to the loft.

Stiles remembered that he had only really driven down to the Hale house to paint the front door. He hadn’t planned on exploring the property and following tunnels around. Plus, Derek was probably waiting for him to call and head over to the loft for the nightly search. He really wanted to get in some hours in Beacon Heights before probably having to go back home.

He slid the heavy door back into place and locked it back up. It was better to leave things the way that they were found...except for the front door. As Stiles walked back up the dark staircase, he continued to let the bright screen of his cell phone guide the way. Once he got back up to the ground floor, he shut the basement passageway closed and started back towards his jeep.

When he rounded the corner of the stairwell, he crashed into a tall figure that was standing in his way. Stiles shouted, pushing back against the figure’s chest, and crashed down onto the charred wooden floor with a loud thud. He was terrified for a mere moment before he looked up at the man that he had slammed into…

Derek.

“Fucking _shit_!” Stiles shouted angrily, pulling himself off of the dusty ground. He began to furiously dust off his backside while glaring at Derek. “What the fuck are you trying to do to me? Give me a heart attack or something?”

“I didn’t expect you to actually be dumb enough to wander around out here while there’s a pack of alphas on the loose.” Derek stared up and down at Stiles who was still pawing at his backside—trying his hardest to knock all of the dirt, dust, char, and splinters he had picked up from falling down onto the ground.

“Hey, I told you that I’d call when I got done with the door.” Stiles explained. “And I doubt the alphas are spending any of their valuable time hanging around your old house. They clearly have busier things to do...like playing hide and go seek and stealing stones.”

Derek’s eyebrow arched. “You were _just_ poisoned by one of the alphas.”

He watched Stiles’ face fall into a state of disbelief and offence, as if he were being wronged by some sort of outrageous lie. Except, it wasn’t lie. He actually _had_ just been poisoned by one of the alphas back at the charity auction and had to be watched over through the night to make sure there weren’t any complications.

“That was a once in a lifetime kind of thing. I’m not going to let that happen again.” Stiles replied. He spoke seriously, but with just enough playfulness to his voice that he wasn’t coming across as extremely defensive. He actually appreciated Derek’s caring nature.

Derek spun around from facing where Stiles stood. He walked back out to the front porch of the house, expectant of Stiles to follow in his direction. He had half the mind to question Stiles as to why he was snooping around the house, but he figured that it wasn’t necessary. It was fine if Stiles got curious about the house. Secondly, Derek wasn’t in the mood to really discuss his family home.

“I thought this shade of red would be a good color since you have red alpha eyes.” Stiles chuckled, urging Derek to turn around and look at the freshly painted door. “Like, ‘I’m an alpha and this is my alpha house’.”

“Somehow, I don’t think that I’ll ever be in the mood to host any housewarming parties.” Derek bit back sarcastically, stepping down the porch stairs towards his car.

That was a joke—Derek made a joke—and it was a pretty solid one, too. Stiles wanted to congratulate Derek for getting into the groove of experimenting with some jokes, despite the stressful air looming over both of their heads. It was healthy to incorporate playfulness into your life, anyways. Even a werewolf with super-healing abilities could benefit from not being so serious all of the time.

“I’ll meet you back at the loft.” Stiles shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth.

Stiles watched Derek slink into the front seat of the Camaro and three-point turn himself back into the direction of the road that lead back into town. As the searing taillights of the Camaro faded away into the haunting shadows of the woods, Stiles hoped back into his jeep and set off for Beacon Heights.

Peter was the one who slid open the loft’s door when Stiles knocked. He stood with his arm stretched out across the open gap, palm resting against the door’s metal threshold side, denying Stiles entrance. He took a minute to silently observe Stiles’ presence by analyzing his physical appearance and sniffing the surrounding air for any abnormal scents.

“What the hell is your problem?” Stiles asked.

“You were scratched and poisoned by wolfsbane laced claws from one of our dear alphas. Alpha claws could be more dangerous than the wolfsbane they infected you with. I’m just making certain that there aren’t any lingering shadows that they’ve left on you.”

“Do you wanna know about the shadows?” Stiles ducked under Peter’s stiff arm and entered the loft. “They kept me feeling blissfully dazed, made me suffer through a fever, and then let me fall into a nice sleep.”

“Those are the effects of the wolfsbane, not the claws—” Peter began, shutting the door.

“—a couple tiny scratch marks on the back of my neck.” Stiles piped. “I’m an alpha-attack survivor.”

“So, you haven’t experienced any sort of invasive visions, potentially passed down through the scratch?” Peter asked. “They could have given you some clues as to where they’re keeping Derek’s betas...perhaps even the definite reason as to why they’re here.”

Stiles dropped himself down on the loft’s couch and kicked his feet up to rest on the coffee table, making sure to not totally disturb the game of solitaire that Isaac had splayed across the coffee table. “Well, if I start getting some creepy scratch visions, I won’t keep it a secret.”

Isaac clicked his tongue in an unsympathetic fashion. “You took razor claws to the back of the neck and didn’t even get information about the alpha pack. A lose-lose situation.”

“I got a boyfriend out of it.” Stiles boasted. “You know Danny, don’t you?”

“You’re dating the goalie?”

Derek walked into the main quarters of the loft carrying a thick book in his hands. He was curious and wanted to know more about what Stiles was talking about, but he didn’t want to come across as invasive. He had figured that all of the lively energy between both Stiles and Danny meant something, but hadn’t necessarily wanted to dwell on what it meant.

There was a _distinctive_ prickle inside Derek’s stomach that he immediately recognized, yet couldn’t exactly remember the last time that he felt it. An odd sensation of sadness, frustration, and resentment fell over Derek’s body like a blanket, binding both his heart and mind with sharp barbed coil. He couldn’t quite comprehend the reason why he felt the way he did. It was... _something_ , but Derek elected to focus on his betas rather than his confused feelings.

“We’re not technically dating.” Stiles casually confirmed. “My father was getting suspicious and I needed to play along with his assumption as an alibi to cover up all of this behind the scenes detective work.”

Isaac scoffed. “Yeah, because it’s believable that _you_ could score somebody like Danny.”

“I could score Danny.” Stiles argued. “It’s junior year. I’m single...he’s single...and he likes me. Well, he _did_ like me at one point in time. Back in the second grade, he always used to bring a second cookie in his lunch box and share with me when Jackson didn’t want it.”

Isaac sat there with a blank expression on his face. He was genuinely confused and unimpressed with Stiles’ logic. Was he actually being serious or was he just trying to twist his sarcasm into Isaac’ brain to keep him guessing?

“What does a sloppy seconds cookie have to do—”

“We’re heading out.” Derek interrupted from where he stood across the loft, commanding attention to himself. He tossed the book that he was holding over to his bed and began walking towards the loft’s door, letting the others follow him out.

Things fell back into familiar order once everybody got down to the parking lot. Peter and Isaac scurried off together to search Beacon Heights’ south side, while Derek and Stiles took the jeep to search throughout the north side. There were still so many places to search in the city that the task remained just as daunting as it had appeared the first time that they had started.

The search started off in what was probably once the epicenter of the city—way before things advanced and a more modern hub of Beacon Heights was constructed. The area was very dark, isolated, and abandoned. The only thing that was keeping the road somewhat visible were the headlights of the jeep.

It was incredibly creepy driving down the empty roads whilst surrounded by sky-high buildings that were completely dark and partially crumbling to pieces. They looked like monstrous towers of charcoal, entirely void of any kind of light. It almost felt like both Stiles and Derek were getting swallowed up by inescapable darkness.

“This...looks like the ruins of a post-apocalyptic city.” Stiles said, looking up through the windshield. “Are you sure we’re even still in Beacon Heights?”

“Park over there on the side of the road. I want to search through some of these alleyways.”

Stiles pulled off to the curb of the road and parked. It wasn’t until the breathing of his engine and the beams of his headlights switched off that he was made fully aware of how quiet and dark his surroundings were. When the two stepped out of the jeep, Stiles raced around to the trunk to pull out his baseball bat while Derek went ahead and slipped into one of the alleys.

“Wait up!” Stiles yelled, charging after Derek. “You’re in a huge hurry to get into these alleys. Do you have some sort of illegal werewolf poker club down here or something?”

“I just want to sweep through these areas as fast as we can. There’s a lot more places that we need to still search.”

“Aye-aye, Captain Hale.”

For the following hour, the two walked up and down what Stiles had cleverly decided to nickname “Shadow Boulevard”, checking down every alleyway they managed to come across. They didn’t find anything suspicious, nor did they find any leads. However, Stiles did come to the realization that it would be awesome to play a couple rounds of paintball war in the abandoned town.

Around eleven o’clock, Stiles noticed that his gas meter was reading “empty”. He knew that he needed to fill up before he got himself and Derek stuck out in the middle of nowhere. If there was anything that Stiles definitely _didn’t_ want to do, it would be having to walk around Beacon Heights, looking for the nearest gas station.

Stiles eventually drove up to a rundown two-pump truck stop that, by the looks of it, probably only received visits about five times a day. He pulled into the parking lot and parked next to one of the vacant pumps and then jumped out of the jeep, leaving Derek to guard his prized possession.

The inside of the truck stop was utterly disgraceful. It wasn’t like Stiles had any kind of positive expectations for gas stations around the globe, but a little upkeep couldn’t hurt. The floors were stained brown with dirt and they were sticky, which made Stiles’ sneakers snap on the ground with every step he took. There were also various items scattered around the floor—unopened bags of chips, candy bars, pieces of food—all of which were left to collect dust on the ground.

Stiles grabbed a clean bag of chips from one of the aisles and two bottles of cherry cola from the single refrigerator in the back of the store. As he walked up to the cashier, he checked the expiration dates on all of the items that he had chosen just to make sure that they hadn’t been sitting in the store for five years or something ridiculous. They were fine.

The cashier was a scraggly blond guy, probably in his late-20’s. He had a long beard and was wearing a dirty trucker’s hat. He looked and smelt like he hadn’t taken a shower in months. It was the unfortunate pleasure of Stiles’ nose to confirm that.

Stiles set his items down on the counter and began to pull out his wallet. “What are all of those for? The zombie apocalypse?” He asked, gesturing to the wall of weapons behind the cashier.

The wall had a couple pistols, a crowbar, some cans of mace, a stun-gun, and a baseball bat. It looked more like a weapon’s store in a videogame, rather than a truck stop that rested on the outskirts of Beacon Heights. What in world was the reason for all of the battle material?

“Maaaaaaaaaan, you wouldn’t even believe if I told’ya!” The cashier exclaimed boldly.

“Try me.”

“Aliens, man.”

Stiles almost wanted to laugh. Aliens? Really? He felt a chuckle lodged in his throat as he tried to maintain a straight face while he looked the cashier dead in the eyes in disbelief. But then he realized that aliens were supposedly myth….just like werewolves and lizard people. Suddenly, he felt himself compelled to ask more questions.

“You saw an alien?”

“A couple weeks ago, I saw a whole lot of ‘em—walking right down out there on the road in the middle of the night.” The cashier pointed out the window to the empty road that Stiles had just been driving down a couple minutes prior.

“What makes you think that they were aliens? They could have just been regular people...exploring the night.” Stiles suggested.

The cashier looked anxious. “I ain’t never seen _regular people_ with spooky glowing eyes. Their eyes were like balls of red fire, man. They could have abducted me to do all of those interstellar experiments and stuff. I ain’t taking my chances.” he explained.

The lodged chuckle in Stiles’ throat was gone. There were definitely no regular people in the world with spooky glowing eyes of red fire, but there were alpha werewolves that fit the description. Stiles wanted to question the cashier even more, but he also didn’t want to alarm the man any more than he already was. He also just wanted to hurry and fill up his jeep so he could get back on the road with Derek with the new information acting as a lead.

Stiles gave the cashier a twenty dollar bill and asked the man to place it onto the pump that he needed to use for the jeep. He then gave the cashier another five dollars to purchase the snacks he had grabbed and barreled back outside towards the jeep.

After Stiles was finished filling up the gas tank, he jumped inside of the jeep and tossed the plastic bag of snacks onto Derek’s lap—willing him to glare in Stiles’ direction. The snacks had landed directly on his crotch, unbeknownst to Stiles, simply because he looked totally spaced out as if he had something important to say.

“What the hell are you looking at me like that for?” Derek asked, shoving the plastic bag down to the floor of the jeep.

Stiles started the engine and switched back on the headlights. “Do you want to know what the dude in there told me?”

“Not really.” Derek deadpanned.

“He saw aliens—”

“Stiles…”

“—aliens with glowing red eyes, Derek.”

Derek grew more attentive with the mention of red eyes. Stiles chuckled and pulled back out onto the road from the truck stop. He hoped that the cashier’s information provided some sort of hint as to the location that the alpha pack would be located. There had to be a reason as to why they were walking around in the middle of the night by that truck stop. Perhaps their secret hideout was somewhere nearby.

“The cashier said that he saw them walking down the road a couple weeks ago. I don’t know about you, but it sounds like a good break in this whole case.” Stiles pawed enthusiastically at the steering wheel. “I mean, if they were walking around over here, maybe their alpha base is somewhere around here.”

“I don’t know why they would be out here in this corner of the city when there’s barely anything out here to conceal them…” Derek muttered, looking out through the passenger window into the empty darkness. “But we’re coming up to a more populated piece of the city in a couple minutes. We should sweep through just in case.”

“See, we’re closing in on these sons of bitches.”

Searching through abandoned buildings and alleyways with no payoff whatsoever was hard to take when it happened on a continuous note. Nonetheless, whenever a new lead fell down in front of Derek’s path, he felt compelled to take up on it. The leads made him feel hopeful, even though the majority of them ran up to dead ends.

After sweeping through a quiet neighborhood of homes and around the perimeters of some factories and warehouses like Derek had suggested, Stiles had to call it a night. Normally, he’d stay out with Derek for a while longer—so as long as he got back before his father woke up for work. But his father was working the night shift, which meant that he’d probably get back sometime between two and three o’clock in the morning. Stiles needed to be home if he wanted to avoid another lecture.

Stiles dropped Derek off in the southern part of Beacon Heights with Peter and Isaac so that the three of them could continue to conduct some searching throughout the rest of the night. Peter and Isaac were checking out the surrounding area of a bright and lively nightclub scene—full of blaring music and the smell of booze. It definitely didn’t seem to be Derek’s “scene”, but he had to deal with it. Plus, maybe it was smart to search around areas that weren’t all dark and abandoned.


	16. Full Moon Problems

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The full moon rolls around and Derek isn't taking it too well.

Once Stiles got back to his house, he was relieved to find that his father wasn’t home yet. He probably could have stayed out with Derek for a couple more hours, but he was already walking on a thin line. With Scott being out of summer school and his father under the impression that he was sneaking out to sleep around with Danny, Stiles had to be more careful.

Since it was already almost two o’clock in the early morning by the time Stiles put his foot through the front door of his house, he decided to just head to bed. There wasn’t really a reason to stay up. Any updates regarding the search would probably be listed as new text messages on his phone when he woke up anyways.

When he woke back up in the light of the morning, his father had already went back to work for a regular shift. The coffee pot downstairs in the kitchen was still hot, which meant that his father had in fact come back home for a couple hours. There wasn’t any need to worry so Stiles just went about his daily schedule.

The rest of Wednesday played out like all of the other _“normal”_ days that Stiles had enjoyed during the summer. In the afternoon, Stiles went over to Derek’s loft and helped search around for a while until he had to get back home for dinner. After his father fell asleep around eleven, Stiles went back to the loft and continued searching throughout the rest of the night and into the early morning hours.

Thursday rolled around in the same manner of familiarity. The afternoon journey over to the loft while his father was at work was normal. Inside the loft, Isaac was sitting in a chair next to the coffee table, scrolling through his phone. Peter was lounging around on the couch with his eyes closed and his arms extended behind his head for support of his neck. Meanwhile, Derek was nowhere to be seen. It wasn’t uncommon, though. Derek was typically somewhere off in the loft to himself.

Stiles stood by the desk, skimming through some of the leather-bound books that were laid across the metal surface. They were all different books that talked about various mythical creatures. Some of the monsters that were listed were so outrageous that he hoped none of them actually existed. But he figured that if they were in books that Derek was reading, they probably existed somewhere around the world.

“Put the book down.” Derek said, interrupting the silence of the loft.

“Oh, _joy_.” Stiles droned, closing the book and setting it back down onto the desk. “I’m so glad that my search partner for the afternoon is in such a pleasant mood.”

Stiles swept across the loft, taking the time to shoot Derek a glare of his own. He didn’t appreciate Derek’s attitude, although there was something very mesmerizing about how Derek strode out from the shadows, dressed in all black, hair tousled, a spark of fierceness in his eyes, and his jaw clenched. He looked like he had just gotten done with awesome sex or something, which made Stiles wonder about what Derek was always doing in the inners of the loft.

After ten minutes of driving around with Derek, it was clear that he hadn’t gotten done with awesome sex. Nobody who had just experienced great sex would be in such a terrible mood, which is exactly what Derek was experiencing. It wasn’t the typical grumpy mood, either. It was something entirely different—slightly worrying—for Derek’s sake.

Derek didn’t seem like he was feeling too well. He had hideous shadows under his eyes from what appeared to be lack of sleep; however it was unclear if werewolves could even get bags under their eyes because of the healing factor. Secondly, all of Derek’s responses to conversation were quick, cut off, and barked out. He wasn’t usually in that much of a talkative mood, but again, this was different. Derek just seemed like he wanted to let loose some ferocious claw swipes at the interior of the jeep.

The afternoon search stretched into the early evening like it normally did and was focused entirely on the road that the alphas were supposedly spotted on. There were a lot of surrounding areas to look through, and only a couple places had been thoroughly checked the night before. The only problem was that Derek was having a serious problem with the search.

It seemed like Derek was having a difficult time focusing on what he needed to focus on. Most of the search consisted of Derek sniffling around wildly—crinkling and rubbing at his nose. It was easy to see that he was growing increasingly frustrated as the hours passed. His body visibly grew tenser as the sun began to sink in the sky and there was a point where Derek stopped talking altogether—not even the occasional word or two.

Stiles considered the possibility that maybe was on drugs or something, but that was unlikely since drugs wouldn’t have any actual effects on werewolves. Maybe he was poisoned by another wolfsbane bullet. Maybe the strange personality was a sign that the two of them were getting closer to the alphas? Did that happen? Could the alpha pack’s presence affect another werewolf’s health in that way?

Around six, they were done with their searching and decided to drive back to the loft so that Stiles could get back home for dinner. They would resume the searching around midnight once Stiles’ father fell asleep for the night. Although, Stiles didn’t know if the nightly searching would happen because Derek was all sorts of fucked up.

“Are you feeling okay?” Stiles asked, looking over to observe Derek. When he didn’t bother to respond, Stiles asked again, but a little more demanding. “Derek! What the hell is going on with you? Are you having some sort of problem?”

“I’m fine.” Derek mumbled.

“Really, because you haven’t acted like it.”

“I’m. _Fine_.” Derek growled, still refusing to look over in Stiles’ direction.

There was no point in getting into it with Derek. He could be the most stubborn child when he wanted to be. Not only that, but he was a total professional at shutting people out. The fact that he was also having some sort of mysterious bad day didn’t help to make matters better.

Stiles was curious and somewhat worried. He figured that everything would work out in the long run. After all, everybody in the existence of the world had an off-day every once in awhile. Derek probably had a few more off-days than the typical average person, but that was fine. Stiles’ perception of Derek had changed drastically throughout the summer, so he knew that Derek wasn’t always growls and a bad attitude.

Stiles parked in front of Derek’s building and watched Derek slump into the lobby. It was possible that he was just tired and needed a good nap. Just from experience, Stiles knew that he, himself, could turn into an even bigger sarcastic asshole than normal when he missed out on some good slumber. He hoped that Derek would be feeling better once the nighttime search came around.

When Stiles snuck out of his house later that night, the answer to Derek’s problem slapped him straight across the face just as soon as he walked out to his jeep in the driveway. The answer laid within the sky...the moon...the _full_ moon to be very exact. It was July 15th, which meant that the full moon of the month got to take its place in the sky and fuck up some werewolves.

The full moon could explain the reason as to why Derek was having such a terrible day. It explained why Derek was in an awful mood and seemed to have a great deal of trouble in controlling his werewolf-y abilities—specifically his ol’ sniffer. The only real question that remained was why Derek was having a problem, yet Peter and Isaac had been entirely fine.

As far as Stiles knew, Derek always had himself under control. As a werewolf, he felt the effects of the moon. However, he must have had something sentimental to hold onto during the moons to keep his wolf under his control. It was just like how Scott focused on Allison to keep himself human during the shift. Why was Derek having a problem all of a sudden?

Surprisingly, Derek was the one who answered the door back at the loft. What wasn’t surprising, however, was the fact that Derek looked even worse than he did back during the afternoon search. Stiles wished he could help, but he didn’t know how. Derek wasn’t going completely mad with full moon rage. He was pretty much in control, but it was noticeable that he wasn’t feeling good.

“Hey, look—” Stiles walked into the loft. “—I don’t think we should go out searching tonight. It’s the full moon and you’re having some sort of control problem. Why don’t you just stay in for the night and get some slee—”

“I told you earlier that I was fine and I’m fine right now!” Derek hissed, crowding closer to Stiles’ face. “If you don’t give a fuck about finding Erica and Boyd then you can drive back home and sit on your hands for the rest of the night.”

Stiles wanted to yell back, but he knew that this was the full moon talking. He knew from experience that the full moon could get people saying things that they didn’t mean. It happened with Scott when he wasn’t in control and it was happening with Derek, so Stiles wasn’t inclined to genuinely care about the harsh words.

“Okay then...let’s get on with searching.” Stiles said cheerfully, motioning for everybody inside of the loft to follow him out.

Downstairs, the four paired off into the regular teams and the night officially began. Travelling around with Mr. Moonlight Jerkwad wasn’t going to be the most pleasant of situations, but Stiles knew that he could handle it. Derek’s lunar attitude had absolutely nothing on the “charming” personality that Jackson brought to school with him every day. If he could handle that, then he could handle Derek.

They had only been about five minutes into the drive back to the road where the alphas had been spotted when Derek started to freak out in the passenger seat of the jeep. At first, Stiles just wanted to let everything slide. He didn’t want to antagonize Derek and tell him how to handle himself. He thought it would be better to just let Derek relax and focus.

It started with Derek fidgeting around in the seat like he was trying to get comfortable. The constant turning and slouching was almost nauseating to watch from his peripheral vision, but at least Derek wasn’t growing fur and howling. Next, Derek’s breathing changed and Stiles could tell that he was forcing himself to breath slowly and stay calm. Then, Stiles just happened to notice that Derek was holding both of his hands off to his right side—out of immediate sight from where Stiles was sitting.

Derek’s claws had extended and he couldn’t retract them.

“Let me out.” Derek grumbled.

"What? Can’t you just wait until we get to where we need to be?”

“LET ME OUT!” Derek roared, forcing Stiles to veer off into the wild grass on the side of the road.

Derek shoved open the door and landed firmly in the grass. He paused for a moment, looked around at his surroundings, down to his claws, and then back up towards where he knew he needed to go. There was available woodland several hundred feet away and Derek’s mind was made up.

Derek started running towards the distant wall of trees, almost faster than Stiles’ eyes could track. Immediately, Stiles started calling out for Derek to ‘stop’ and ‘come back’, but it was clear that he wasn’t in the mood to listen to what Stiles had to say. So Stiles quickly turned off the engine, grabbed his baseball bat from the back of the jeep, and began running off in the same direction as Derek.

No, he wasn’t planning on smashing Derek across the face with the baseball bat. He just needed to take extra precautions. Derek was experiencing a pretty nasty shift, one he obviously couldn’t control in the safety of the jeep, so there was no telling what kind of Derek that Stiles could stumble upon in the mess of dark trees. He could find a completely feral Derek, ready and willing to attack and kill even somebody who he had spent the entire summer with.

“Hey, Derek...let me just get you back to the jeep.” Stiles said, calling out to the darkness. “Look, I don’t really know why you’re struggling with your shift, but you shouldn’t be out here. Not alone. Not out of control like this.”

There was a sound of rustling in the bushes behind where Stiles was standing and the sound of sticks being snapped in pieces by heavy feet. Stiles swung around to face the noise, under the assumption that Derek was willfully returning to the one other person in the woods that he knew. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

Instead of staring into the nearby darkness to find Derek’s handsome face, Stiles was confronted by the sight of four werewolves stepping out from the vegetation. The moonlight allowed for Stiles to see just how ferociously vicious they looked whilst completely wolfed out in addition to looking extremely worn down, dirty, and scraggly. The most distinguishing features of the four werewolves were their eyes—some of which had bright glowing blue while the others had yellow.

Stiles gripped the handle of his baseball bat tighter and began to slowly back away from the approaching werewolves. He wasn’t planning on running away or calling out for Derek to come and rescue him. Instead, his mind was quickly working to formulate a plan of attack. He was sizing up each of the werewolves, looking to see which one was the biggest and needed to be taken down first.

“Okay, which one of you ugly motherfuckers is going to take the first hit?” Stiles taunted, drawing up his bat to swing.

Stiles went to make another insulting remark towards the werewolves while threateningly waving around his baseball bat, but was suddenly startled by the sound of growling coming from behind him. He turned around, without even keeping up his protection, only to find that there were three more blue-eyed werewolves stepping into his space.

He was surrounded by seven werewolves—all under the control of the full moon. Four werewolves hadn’t felt like a problem, but Stiles didn’t have the supernatural senses and reflexes to keep up his guard on both sides. He felt his confidence slightly sink as he began to think through the situation he was in.

Stiles kept his posture locked and powerful. He kept his baseball bat raised in defense as he looked between the four werewolves that stood in front of him and the three that were encroaching on his backside. They were getting closer and their snarls were getting louder and more threatening with the passing moments.

A rush of chilled wind blew across Stiles’ body, tousling his hair and clothes. The branches of the surrounding trees began to creak as the wind shook them. For a moment everything appeared to be frozen in frame. It was like a cinematic showdown. The only thing that was missing was some suspenseful music ringing through the air.

The ring of werewolves were like statues. It was as if the moon hadn’t yet commanded them to tear Stiles to pieces, which actually made Stiles very happy. Maybe things didn’t need to get rowdy. Maybe the werewolves were coming back to their senses and would retreat back into the shadows before having to get smacked with a barbed wolfsbane club. It could have been that way, but just as Stiles began to think that he could talk away the wolves, one of them had to go and ruin the fun.

A blue-eyed male werewolf with long matted hair lunged forward with a loud growl. He tried to swipe his jagged claws in the direction of Stiles’ face, however, Stiles was far too quick when it came to his reaction. It was instantaneous. Before the werewolf could even hope to make actual contact, Stiles had already swung his bat through the air. It smashed across the werewolf’s face and sent him flying down to the dirt ground with a pained snarly whine.

The cruel “annihilation” of one of the werewolves shot fear through some of the others. As the first fell to the ground in pain, a couple others began to back away in what appeared to be fear. They surely didn’t expect a human to willingly fight about against werewolves, nor did they expect a human to wield such a powerful weapon.

Stiles’ resistance didn’t stop there. Another werewolf—a yellow-eyed woman—leaped at Stiles. Instead of taking a swing, Stiles just held the bat horizontally in-between his two hands, letting the mountain ash line within the wall act as a barrier between himself and the leaping werewolf. As expected, the line of mountain ash sent up a translucent glass-like wall of blue just in time to let it repel the werewolf backwards into the distant vegetation.

Having already seen two of their own thoroughly embarrassed by a human, the werewolves grew angrier. They all began to wildly take shots at Stiles without any sort of planned attack formation. Fortunately, Stiles was able to successfully dodge and deflect most of the incoming punches, kicks, and swipes of claws.

While it was incredibly difficult and stressful to stay on alert and attempt to stay one step ahead of agile werewolves, Stiles was actually laughing to himself about how he was taking on seven vicious werewolves during a full moon. He wasn’t shy on hiding his taunting nature and started to laugh out loud in the faces of his opponents. It was amazing that he wasn’t already lying seriously wounded or dead on the ground.

“Come on! You guys call yourselves werewolves? I’m a human and I’m kicking your asses all the way back to the fucking moon!” Stiles shouted, slamming the tip of his bat into the kneecap of another werewolf that was coming at him. “Who taught you guys to figh—”

Without warning, Stiles was sent tumbling down to the ground with a searing pain radiating and tearing through his right shoulder and bicep. From out of his field of vision, a werewolf had taken a lucky swipe at Stiles’ shoulder. He cried out in pain and let his baseball bat drop down to the ground as he crashed to the ground.

The realization of what happened dropped a lead weight down into his stomach, leading him to almost choke on nervousness. He had been caught, brought down to the ground, and his weapon was now out of his reach. The werewolves collectively began to approach and crowd around him—most of them smiling with their success.

Stiles began to hurriedly scramble backwards by kicking his feet into the dirt, attempting to push himself away from the werewolves. He clutched at his shoulder, feeling the warm stickiness of blood coat the palm of his hand. This was the finale...he was done...he was certain. They wouldn’t spare him, not after what he had done. And especially not with the gleam of pure fury that sparkled in their glowing eyes.

The first werewolf that Stiles had beaten over the face with his bat was standing directly in front of him with the other six werewolves standing at his side. It was fitting that he’d get to deliver the finishing blow, seeing as how Stiles was the one to crack him across the face in the beginning. Though, Stiles wouldn’t have been surprised if they all took turns chomping down on his body.

Stiles took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. He geared up for the inevitable. His shoulder was already causing him quite a lot of pain, but the werewolves weren’t going to stop with that. He knew that they’d do way more, but before any of them had the chance to do anything else, there was a deafening roar from the shadows.

The roar was the loudest Stiles had ever heard before. He knew that it must have come from somebody very powerful, because the werewolves shuddered with fear and instantly flinched at the sound. Admittedly, Stiles flinched too. It was loud and left his ears with an atrocious ringing. His stomach clenched with the thought of the roar belonging to one of the alphas.

The roar didn’t belong to one of the alphas, but it did belong to _an_ alpha.

Derek jumped out from the shadows—completely wolfed out. His claws were extended, his ears were pointed, the widow’s peak of his hairline was deepened, and his eyebrows had entirely vanished—leaving his face to look just as fearsome as it possibly could. If the roar wasn’t enough, the bright red eyes was more than enough to explain to the werewolves about who they were facing. The Alpha of Beacon Hills—Derek Hale.

Derek was somewhat hunched over, allowing his shoulder, neck, and back muscles to flex drastically. He stood savagely, surveying the werewolves whilst snarling and snapping his fangs together. None of the werewolves moved, nor did they risk looking away from Derek. They were focused on his presence, on his status, on his power. Derek could take all of them if he wanted.

One brave werewolf thought that it would be a good idea to challenge Derek. He charged at Derek, but was quickly reminded of his werewolf status. Derek grabbed the middle-aged werewolf by the neck with one hand and held him up above the ground for a couple seconds to display his strength. When the message was clearly received, Derek hurled the werewolf into a tree-trunk, forcing the trunk to splinter violently from the force of impact.

With another ear-drum shattering roar, the werewolves cleared out extremely fast. They knew that they didn’t want to suffer the same painful humiliation as their buddy and knew that there was no reason to fight. Derek was an alpha and he was remarkably powerful. They stood no chance whatsoever, and even if he wasn’t their alpha, they learned a lesson.

“Derek...are you back to controlling it?” Stiles asked gently, continuing to hold pressure on his wound.

Derek didn’t answer. He still looked incredibly pissed off and definitely hadn’t regained control of his shift. He refused to de-shift and continued to snarl under his breath, letting the noise intensify in his throat. He began to stalk towards where Stiles was sitting slouched against a large rock, letting out occasional growls.

Stiles wasn’t scared. He felt genuinely calm, despite being in some serious pain from his shoulder wound. Derek didn’t terrify him the way that he terrified the other werewolves. Yes, Derek was big and growly, but for some reason Stiles wasn’t scared of him. Even if he wasn’t showing signs of regaining control of himself.

As Stiles continued to lie down, Derek came to crouch down to his level—still angry. He could feel Derek’s hot breath wash over his own face with each and every growl. And despite that, Stiles remained calm. He wasn’t scared of what Derek could possibly do to him. For some reason, nothing of that sort was even floating around in his mind.

“Hey, Derek...rough night, huh?” Stiles chuckled softly. “The moon up there is pretty sick tonight. It’s the brightest I’ve ever seen it, I think. I want you to be able to see it too, but you’re not focusing for me right now, buddy. Can you focus for me? Can you find something to think about? Something that makes you feel calm...something that makes you feel safe.”

Derek looked less angry and more confused. Stiles could see the gears behind Derek’s big red eyes turning. He was trying to regain control and come back, but it was difficult. Derek was struggling with it. His forehead was creased in genuine confusion as he tried to find a tether—an anchor.

“I can see you doing it. You’re thinking. You’re trying.” Stiles continued. He closed his eyes and began to breathe softly. “You’re safe here. Just listen...it’s the wind. It’s you’re breathing...my breathing...it’s just us. You don’t have to worry.”

Derek could feel himself working harder and harder to the surface. He was buried underneath his shift, something that hadn’t happened since he was younger. But he was fighting his way back to control. Stiles’ voice was tugging him back to the surface. He could hear him. He could see him. He could smell him. Stiles...and everything he was...everything he meant.

Derek began to lose hold on Stiles’ words, but then something happened. Stiles gently pressed his forehead against Derek’s, murmuring encouragement into the calming air between them. Warmth flooded through Derek’s body as he could feel himself step back on top of his shift. He could retract his fangs, his claws, and his ears. He had control again. The pull of the full moon was lessened to near nothing.

“Stiles…” Derek grumbled. He let his eyes flutter shut and let his forehead continue to rest against Stiles’.

Everything felt so peaceful and Derek didn’t want to break out of the spell-like feeling that encased his body. He wanted to stay and relax for just a little while longer. It wouldn’t hurt to just take in the silence and let his body mend itself back to a healthy state. It felt like there was all the time in the world, but then something stung Derek’s nose. It was the smell of human blood—Stiles’ blood.

Derek’s blood turned to ice when he realized that the smell of blood belonged to Stiles. His mind wasn’t focused on relaxing anymore. It was focused on trying to figure out the reason why Stiles was wounded. What happened? Derek’s brain began to clog with thoughts of “I must have done this” and “it’s my fault”.

“You’re bleeding.” Derek said, pulling away from having his forehead against Stiles’.

“I’m glad you’re so perceptive.” Stiles joked.

“How did—did I—I did this?”

Stiles shook his head. “No, you didn’t. It was those other werewolves.”

Derek was somewhat skeptical. He didn’t know if Stiles was actually telling the truth or if he was lying to spare Derek the gut-wrenching realization. However, Stiles was relatively calm. He didn’t seem shaken and he wasn’t wary of letting Derek sit close to him. That probably wouldn’t have been if the case if Stiles had been attacked by Derek.

“You need to get to the hospital. You might need stitches.” Derek stated, standing up. He reached down and helped Stiles stand back up, but was sure to be careful of not yanking Stiles up to stand too harshly.

“I can’t go to the hospital. What the hell would I tell my father? I’m supposed to be at home sleeping.” Stiles explained, reaching down with his good arm to pick up his baseball bat. “I think I’ll be fine. The scratches aren’t _that_ deep, so I probably don’t need stitches.”

“At most, we need to disinfect and bandage everything up back at the loft.”

“Well—” Stiles reached into his pants pocket and pulled out the keys to the jeep. He tossed them over to Derek with a grin. “—you’re going to have to lead the way because ol’ righty isn’t having such a fun time tonight.”


	17. Twice Scratched By Werewolves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles gets scratched for the second time of the summer and Derek has to play doctor. Also, Stiles is getting extremely fed up with getting hindered by mundane human health.

When the two barged into the loft, Stiles was directed to go sit on the edge of the bed while Derek rushed into the storage closet to gather supplies. Stiles did as he was told and made his way over to the bed. He dropped the baseball bat down to the floor and sat down, wincing hard at the pain in his arm.

The pain continuously surged through the length of his arm—from the top of his shoulder, down to the tips of his fingers. He could only describe the feeling as electricity occasionally being shot through his veins, or as somebody scraping a butcher’s knife along his raw bones. It was so bad that he kept opening his mouth to scream non-vocally, because he didn’t want to alarm Derek.

Derek returned to the living space with a large bowl of warm soapy water, a sponge, some towels, antibiotic ointment, rolls of white gauze bandages, and a clean t-shirt. He came up to stand in front of where Stiles was sitting on the bed and set the items down on the cement floor. He could tell that Stiles was struggling with immense pain because he was sitting there silently, jaw clenched tightly, with beads of sweat soaking his face.

“Can you get these shirts off without causing yourself too much pain?” Derek asked. “I can cut them off—”

“Yeah...I can.” Stiles choked out painfully, grinding his teeth.

Derek grabbed onto the left sleeve of Stiles’ long-sleeved plaid shirt and began to slowly tug it downwards and off of his arm. He tried to be as careful as he could—making sure not to roughly jolt around Stiles’ right side during the process. Stiles kept his pain under wraps while Derek finished pulling off the blue plaid that was now soaked with dark blood on one side.

Stiles had winced when the sleeve had to be dragged down over his wound, but it was nothing compared to what he felt when he had to raise his arms over his head to remove his undershirt. As he raised them up towards to the ceiling to allow Derek the ability to remove it, he accidentally let a shriek of pain escape from his lips and echo off of the brick walls of the loft.

“I’m sorry... _I’m sorry_.” Stiles said. “It just—it hurts. Just get it off. Don’t stop. Just pull it off.”

Derek tried to do as Stiles instructed. He tried to see if he could just get the shirt off as quickly as possible, but whenever he tried to tug up the shirt a little higher, Stiles would grunt and yip in pain. He tried to continue, but there reached a point in which the smell of pure pain was radiating off of Stiles’ body in stronger notes than the blood.

Something else had to be done.

“Here, give me your hand.” Derek said, holding out the palm of his hand.

“Derek, _please_. Just do it!”

“Give me your hand.” Derek repeated, slightly more demanding.

Stiles snapped his eyes shut tightly and lowered his hand down into Derek’s soft grip. He didn’t understand what the hell Derek was trying to do, but he was starting not to even care because the pain was worsening at a rapid rate. He felt like he could pass out at any given moment.

Derek gently clasped both of his hands around Stiles’ right wrist. He sat there for a moment, staring down at them with a look of heavy determination as if he were waiting for something special to happen. At first, everything remained unchanged. Stiles began to grow even more frustrated and anxious with the passing time, but then something actually did begin to kick in.

There was a feeling of tingling warmth that seemed to spill into the flesh of Stiles’ hand and flood throughout his veins until his entire body felt comfortably warm. It felt like he was snuggled up closely to a crackling fire with a cozy blanket wrapped around his body, but he wasn’t. Not only that, but the once unbearable pain felt like nothing more than a slight itch on his shoulder.

He looked over to his shoulder to see why he suddenly felt so much better—lighter and warmer—but he was still injured. The scratches were still there and his wound was still bleeding. He couldn’t figure out why he felt so good, despite still being injured. Did he pass out from pain or something? Maybe he was just hallucinating the good feeling.

Stiles looked down to where Derek’s hands were both still grasped around his wrist. He could see that there were thin dark black veins stretching up Derek’s forearm. The veins appeared to be pumping black liquid or black energy from where Derek’s hands were placed, up through his arms, and into his neck-region. The fact that Derek seemed so focused on staring down to his hands meant that he probably had something to do with the disappearance of the pain and the black veins.

“What are you doing?” Stiles asked.

“I’m taking some of your pain away.” Derek explained, letting go of his grasp on Stiles’ wrist. He looked back at Stiles and noticed that he clearly wasn’t in that much pain anymore. “Now, pull your shirt over your head.”

Stiles gripped the edges of his undershirt and pulled it up and over his head with no problems whatsoever. He didn’t cringe and wince in pain. He didn’t feel anything. It felt like he was completely normal and unwounded. However, it was definitely a strange feeling to know that he was actually still wounded and just wasn’t feeling pain.

“How did you—you can drain pain from people? That’s...that’s awesome. I feel great!” Stiles cheered.

“The pain isn’t permanently gone.” Derek swallowed, eyes fluttering slightly. He looked extremely nauseated. “You’ll feel fine for maybe twenty minutes, but it’ll come back. It might even feel worse when it eventually does. But now I can at least bandage up your wounds without hurting you.”

Derek dipped the sponge into the bowl of the warm soap water and brought it up to Stiles’ shoulder. He began to dab the soaked sponge onto the scratches, carefully wiping away the blood that was still trickling down his arm. He made the motions slow and soft because he wasn’t certain when Stiles’ pain would return. Too harsh of a movement could pull back the pain to Stiles’ body.

“The whole pain-drain feels really good, actually.” Stiles stated. “Like...post-orgasmic.”

Derek held back a snort of laughter. “It’s one of the side-effects you might feel from having your pain siphoned. A numbing feeling around the site of injury, a false sense of enhanced strength and agility, a euphoric feeling, fatigue...maybe a cold sweat.”

“Well, have you considered being a doctor or something? Can you imagine being able to literally just...erase pain from people? You’d be a savior.”

“Absorbing too much pain from others could kill me.” Derek explained, continuing to wash over Stiles’ scratches with the sponge. “There’s only so much poison somebody can take before the body just can’t do it anymore.”

As Derek finished up with the sponge wash and started to smear on some antibiotic ointment, Stiles could feel the pain as it began to reemerge. It wasn’t instantaneous pain—not like it had been before the “pain-drain”. It was more of dull and sore ache, like what you could imagine feeling after a tough workout at the gym. But Stiles knew that the pain would only get worse as time passed.

Once the ointment was applied and the fresh bandage was snuggly wrapped around Stiles’ shoulder and bicep, Derek wandered back into the hallway bathroom of the loft and returned with some pain medication. It probably wouldn’t be strong enough to completely dissolve all of the pain that would eventually return, but it would reduce the inflammation and make things more comfortable.

“I see you stocked up on medical supplies.” Stiles chuckled, pausing to swallow two pain pills. “Fine, I’ll let you say it—say that you knew something like this would happen.”

“I warned you.” Derek picked up the materials that he used to tend to Stiles’ scratches from the ground and carried them over to set them down on a nearby table. “This is dangerous. You’re lucky that you walked out of that with only some scratches.”

“Yeah, well, I probably wouldn’t have gotten these scratches if you hadn’t made me pull over to the side of the road so that you could frolic through the woods in moonlight.”

The words practically drew Derek towards the large arch window of the loft. He looked out towards the moonlit city and thought. Stiles was right. If he hadn’t lost control of his shift and forced Stiles to stop alongside that empty road, then Stiles wouldn’t have had to defend himself against those werewolves.

“I’m sorry.” Derek apologized.

Stiles stood up from the bed, slightly wincing at the growing soreness of his shoulder, and sauntered over to stand alongside Derek by the window. The two stared out into city beyond and watched the moonlight illuminate the distant structures. It actually was the brightest that Stiles had seen in a long time, just like he had said to Derek back in the woods.

When Stiles looked over to see what Derek was thinking, he could see in his facial expression a mixture of sadness and confusion. He almost looked as if the moon was a new thing in existence and he couldn’t wrap his head around it. The sad and confused look was kind of always there, but it looked more intense this time around.

“Hey—” Stiles raised his hand to grip Derek’s shoulder in—what? In comfort? In support? He didn’t know, so he decided against doing it and lowered his hand back down. “—you know that I’m not actually pissed off at you for losing control? It happens to werewolves sometimes, right?”

“It happens to _new_ werewolves. Not the ones that have experienced numerous full moons for years.”

“So? You’ve been under a bunch of stress lately and you’re tired. Or maybe it was because of those werewolves. I mean, who the fuck were they?”

“Omegas. They don’t have a pack of their own because they were either disowned by their pack or because they willingly abandoned it. And since omegas will naturally feel compelled to seek out and submit to a new alpha, they’ve probably heard the news of the alpha pack being here.”

“Ah-ha, so they must be the other werewolves that are passing through town—the ones that left all of those sleeping bags back at the carnival.” Stiles figured.

“Probably…” Derek trailed off. He looked down at his fingernails, only to watch them begin to elongate into claws once again. “Look, I can’t get back out there to search. I’m having trouble keeping control of my shift and it’s too dangerous. I could kill somebody.”

Derek walked over to the edge of his bed and kicked off his boots. While he tugged at his belt and stripped it off from around his waist, Stiles remained at the window and continued to gaze at the moon. He couldn’t shake this feeling in his gut. It was like there was something in the air—a feeling of impending doom. He had begun to feel it over the last couple days, but he tried to wave it away as being nothing more than his imagination. Still, he couldn’t distance himself from the feeling that grave things would take place in the coming time.

“You should sleep—sleep for a good fourteen hours or something. That always does me some good. Although, I don’t think that’ll help me with this.” Stiles pointed at his bandaged up shoulder and bicep. “But, you’re tired. I can tell. You need a break.”

“I’ll take a break when we’re done with all of this.”

“What if we’re never done with all of this, Derek?” Stiles argued. “Are you just going to grind yourself down to nothing? If the alphas stormed this loft in the next five minutes, you wouldn’t be able to fight back. What good is that to anybody?”

“I need to regain control.” Derek stated, yanking off his t-shirt. He knelt down to the ground beside his bed and reached underneath it, only to grasp onto something and slide it out into the open.

Derek pulled out a narrow wooden box that had a large black triskelion stamped on the surface—identical to the one that was tattooed on Derek’s back. Stiles’ curiosity was immediately captured while he watched Derek pat away a slight film of dust from the surface of the wood.

Stiles was just about to ask about what was inside the box when his eyes were treated to an unpleasant sight. As the silver clasps that glued the box closed were unfastened, Stiles could see a couple metal contraptions that were all jumbled together within the confinements of the wooden box. He could see spikes, nails, chains, and screws—none of which left a nice taste in Stiles’ mouth.

“What do you plan on doing with those things? Are you planning to torture somebody?”

“Yeah...myself.” Derek responded, tugging out the metal torture devices and dropping them loudly onto the cement floor.

“What the fuck, Derek?”

“This is what werewolves do when they can’t control themselves. Physical infliction of pain can bring the shift back down to a manageable level. The pull of the moon doesn’t go away, but while my body responds to the pain, my mind can focus on control.”

“But, you’ve controlled your shift perfectly. What’s the problem now?” Stiles asked. He really wanted to gesture wildly with his arms—because it was natural—but the stinging reminder of his injured arm prevented him from doing so.

Derek grabbed the handful of torture chains and walked over to one of the wooden pillars of the loft’s main room. He sat down in front of the wooden pillar, pressing his back hard against rough surface. While Stiles studied the odd behavior, Derek began to slip his arms through some of the shackles and chains.

The inners of the shackles were lined with pointed screws, capable of being drilled into somebody’s skin. And given the fact that Derek was pulling each of them up to his biceps and wrapping his wrists in chains, he was planning to bore the screws down into his own skin. It made Stiles’ skin twitch. If this was how werewolves had to keep themselves under control, Stiles was glad that he never had to battle with the moonlight.

“You should leave.” Derek suggested.

Stiles looked around. He stared between the wooden box of torture supplies, to Derek on the floor, and over to the screw-ridden shackles. He fought with himself over whether or not to leave Derek alone for the rest of night. The thought of Derek being in pain—especially self inflicted pain—was definitely different than it had been at the beginning of the summer.

Eventually, Stiles decided to just let Derek be. There were probably other ways to better keep a werewolf’s shift under control, but Stiles wasn’t exactly sure what ways those were. He could spend all night debating with Derek over what he should do instead of chaining himself up and hurting himself. However, Derek truly was struggling with his shift. He had already lost control once, so firing him up probably wasn’t the best idea.

“Take the pain medication with you.” Derek added, watching Stiles walk towards the loft’s door. “And take a shirt from the closet.”

After Stiles finally left the loft, Derek continued to chain himself up to the wooden pillar. The fact that he wasn’t in complete control of his shift for the time being was both startling and frustrating. He hadn’t suffered such a slip up since his teenage years. He felt embarrassed. He was an alpha and alphas shouldn’t be losing touch with their control during a standard full moon.

Control for a werewolf could be obtained by much more than pain. Thoughts, feelings, and emotions could all potentially play a hand in tipping the scale between being docile and being vicious for a werewolf. Derek’s sudden loss of control wasn’t because he wasn’t focusing. It wasn’t because he was weak. It wasn’t because of stress or a lack of sleep.

It was because his anchor—the fine mix of emotion and memory that had the ability to keep a werewolf grounded during a full moon. For years, Derek’s anchor had been his own self-loathing. It had been all of his anger, and fear, and sadness that buried itself deep within his body after the fire. The pain of everything kept himself chained up inside, so that he didn’t have to be chained up on the outside.

But Derek’s anchor was beginning to wear out. As a person, his emotions were evolving. His ideas and feelings were bending into new shapes. The scars of his mistakes and of what happened to his family and home were still very much there—very much _felt_. However, an anchor of pain was never the strongest bind. An anchor crafted from affection, sympathy, infatuation, sanctuary, joy, and closeness was always stronger.

Unfortunately, Derek had never had the chance to genuinely feel its effects after the fire—until now. That anchor, the one stronger than physical and mental anguish, was slowly beginning to replace what Derek had originally used to keep himself grounded. That’s why he couldn’t manage to keep complete control. As one anchor began to fade and another started to appear, there was a temporary empty space for the inability to control.

Derek didn’t understand it all. He knew how anchors worked. He knew what he had used for years to keep himself under lock and key. But now things were changing and the feelings were new. They felt incredibly different, yet good. All he really knew was that he was ripped out of an uncontrollable fog in those woods by the sound of Stiles’ voice and feeling of Stiles’ forehead pressed against his own. What Derek was supposed to do with that...he didn’t yet know.

The weekend didn’t go over well in Stiles’ favor. He was still suffering with a shoulder that ached and stung like a bitch whenever he tried to move it around. While the pain medication did help keep most of the pain at bay, the injury was what made Derek refuse Stiles’ nightly help. And although Stiles would normally push against Derek’s stupid demands, he couldn’t deny that his injury kept him from doing anything major.

There wasn’t anything useful about limited mobility and pain in Stiles’ dominant arm. He couldn’t even masturbate comfortably, let alone wield a heavy anti-werewolf baseball bat. Not to mention the fact that driving the jeep was even more of a struggle. Driving around Beacon Heights for hours during the night wasn’t something that Stiles could bear to manage.

A nightly ritual eventually formed. After his nightly shower, Stiles stood in front of the bathroom mirror and carefully wrapped new bandages around his scratches. It took a couple minutes to look over the wounds before wrapping them back up. Stiles just wanted to see how well they were healing. They looked fine, but they weren’t gone. The fact that they were healing so humanly slow was frustrating. Stiles wanted to get back into the “beta search” action.

By Thursday, the scratches still weren’t healed in the way that Stiles desperately wanted them to be. He still couldn’t really wield his baseball bat and driving was nothing more than a slightly less aggravating nightmare. Nevertheless, Stiles was fed up with having to sit at home and pretend like he was fine when his father asked if everything was okay. Even if he wasn’t completely up to his normal speed, he wanted to get back to what seemed so normal.

Stiles’ mind didn’t take much convincing. The thought of hanging around his house for another day without any sort of excitement was enough to push him into his jeep and towards Derek’s loft. Before he could even question his actions, he was already knocking at Derek’s door and awaiting an answer. He just hoped that the answer wouldn’t be Derek slamming the door in his face.

Isaac opened the door—shirtless and sweaty. In his hands were two long and thin metal bars that looked like nunchucks minus the chain that connected the two bars. As Stiles moved into the loft, he could see that Derek was in the back of the loft near the window and metal desk—equally as shirtless and sweaty. He was also holding two metal bars that were identical to the ones that Isaac was carrying.

Stiles had seen those kind of bars in TV shows and movies. They were used to train somebody’s defense and fighting skills. More specifically, they were used to test and improve one’s reaction time. The goal was to use your set of bars to deflect and shield yourself from the swipes and jabs of your opponent's bars. And by the looks of the bars, it probably wasn’t fun to get hit by one of them.

“You’re not finished healing, Stiles.” Derek said, setting down his metal bars. “You need to be back at home.”

“It’s boring. _I’m bored!_ ” Stiles cried. “Do you know how hard it is to do absolutely nothing? I haven’t done anything besides watch TV and replay my favorite video games.”

“Wow, you’re doing exactly what people are supposed to do during their summer vacation. Tragic.” Isaac sneered sarcastically.

Stiles ignored him and crossed the loft. He sat down on the couch—careful not to jerk his arm in the process—and then slouched down to get comfortable on the cushions. He wasn’t in the mood to argue with Isaac and he really wasn’t in the mood to listen to one of Derek’s lectures. But he figured that if that’s what was coming, he didn’t have the energy to drive all of the way back to his own house.

“I just needed to get out of my house for a bit. It felt stuffy. I needed some air. I’ll just sit here while you train. Don’t mind me. I’ll just—” Stiles reached down and grabbed a book off of the coffee table in front of him. “—I’ll just sit back and read some books.”

Derek didn’t argue. He didn’t gripe. Instead, he just grabbed the metal bars back off of the desk and motioned for Isaac to close the loft door and return to the center of the loft so that they could continue their training. Isaac did was he was instructed and geared up for another round.

As both Derek and Isaac trained, Stiles remained on the couch and pretended to read the book from the coffee table— _The Canterbury Tales_. It seemed to be written in gibberish as far as Stiles was concerned. Even if he actually wanted to pay attention to the book, he couldn’t. Not with the clanging sounds of metal bars striking against each other.

The training didn’t look anywhere near as brutal as Stiles expected it to be. It looked somewhat fun, except for the moments when Isaac failed to block Derek’s incoming swings and took a hit to the ribs or leg with one of those bars. Nonetheless, watching the two werewolves dance around the loft in battle made Stiles begin to think.

Stiles’ injury was the product of his own being. He was human. He didn’t have any of the special reflexes and senses that he could have used to evade the finishing swipe of that werewolf’s hand. The wolfsbane and mountain ash baseball bat had served great as a defense, but even that didn’t offer enough protection. Suddenly, the idea of training with Derek and Isaac to pick up some awesome hand-to-hand combat moves began to build in Stiles’ mind as he watched from behind the pages of Derek’s boring novel.

When the training session finally ended, Derek and Isaac were panting hard and covered in sweat. There was no question in Stiles’ mind that Derek had just about the most ferocious workout regimens in the world. The fact that Isaac was having difficulty breathing, despite being a werewolf, was more than enough proof of that. If Derek’s career as an alpha werewolf didn’t end up panning out, he could always put out a workout tape or something. 

“Bravo. _Bravo_.” Stiles joked, standing up from the couch. “You sure know how to work up a monstrous sweat. I don’t even want to imagine what you’d look like after a couple minutes in a sauna...or after sex...or after you’ve had sauna-sex.”

“Life isn’t one big porno.” Isaac said.

“Wait, are you telling me that sauna-sex doesn’t actually exist in the realm of reality? Is it nothing but a fantasy? Wow, my hopes for the future are shattered. Thanks, Mr. Cheekbones.” Stiles huffed dramatically.

Derek finished patting down his body with a clean towel just as a knock sounded at the door. As he walked over open the door, Isaac scurried off to his bedroom to change into some clean, non-sweaty clothes. The loft door slid to reveal Peter, who was standing in the threshold with his hands on his hips.

“How impolite.” Peter scoffed, stepping into the loft. “You trained without me.”

Derek ignored Peter’s stupid comment and walked over to where he stored his clean shirts. He pulled out a nice v-neck shirt and slipped it on over his head. Meanwhile, Peter loitered around the loft’s front door—anticipating the moment they’d all leave for the search. There wasn’t any point of walking across the room to relax on the couch if they were just going to head out in a moment.

Stiles took his seat back on the couch. Unlike Peter, there wasn’t any point of hanging around the front door. It wasn’t like he was going to get to leave with everybody else. His arm wasn’t in terrible condition, but it was screwed up enough for him to know that the afternoon search was off the table. Plus, Derek would throw a tantrum if he even thought about following everybody downstairs to the cars.

“Isaac!” Derek shouted.

Almost instantaneously, Isaac walked out from the shadows of the hallway. He was holding his cell phone up against his ear and was talking to somebody. And from the look on his face, he wasn’t talking to a stranger. It was someone he knew and enjoyed speaking to. Thus the reason why it didn’t take long for Stiles to identify the person on the other line. After all, Isaac technically only had one friend—Scott.

“Yeah...yeah. I can _probably_ make it over. I’ll catch the bus. Okay.” Isaac hung up the phone with his face tainted with guilt. He looked over to Derek with hopeful eyes.

“What?” Derek asked.

“Scott invited me over to hang out. I would have told him that I couldn’t, but it’s smart to hang out with him, right? It’ll keep him in the dark a little longer.”

Derek’s eyebrows creased in confusion and he found himself immediately looking towards Stiles. He didn’t mean to do it, but it was like his brain subconsciously wanted to see Stiles’ reaction. Was he okay with the fact that Scott invited Isaac over to hangout? What did he think about it? Did he have anything to say?

It was easy to see that Stiles was somewhat annoyed. Jealousy was a potent scent and it wasn’t easy for a human to hide it. And despite the fact that Stiles looked as if he was ready to start an interrogation, Derek couldn’t deny that keeping Scott in the dark was still an active plot. It had to be done—whether it happened with Stiles or Isaac. It didn’t really matter, so Derek went with it.

“I don’t care what you do. Just get back sometime before we head out for our night search. Understand?” Derek asked, to which Isaac nodded in confirmation.

“Well—” Stiles interrupted the moment loudly, standing up from the couch again. “—while you’re all off to have some fun in the summer sun, I guess I’m going back home.”

The four travelled down to the parking lot of the building since that’s where the two cars were parked. Stiles made his way over towards where he had parked the jeep. As he passed by Derek, he pat him on the chest and congratulated him on his stellar ability to stay hydrated even with his hyperactive sweat glands, in addition to telling him to not have too much fun during the search. Not surprisingly, Derek didn’t crack a smile.

Derek and Peter got themselves into the Camaro and Isaac started off towards the closest bus stop that would help him get over to Beacon Hills. Stiles carefully got himself into the jeep and started the engine. He didn’t know what came over him—whether he was just tired or if the pain medication was getting to him—but he ended up offering Isaac a ride into Beacon Hills.

He wasn’t fond of Isaac. The boy’s attitude needed a complete overhaul and the fact he tried to murder Lydia wasn’t something that Stiles was going to forget anytime soon. However, he needed to convince himself that he wouldn’t turn into the jealous friend and driving Isaac around was the best test. Luckily, Stiles passed. He didn’t freak out and he didn’t question Isaac’s budding friendship with Scott.


	18. A New Challenger Approaches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles decides that it's stupid to leave the combat training up to the werewolves. He wants in on the action, but how much action is he willing to take?

Friday and the weekend seemed to do nothing but drag on because of Stiles’ mind-numbing boredness. He didn’t bother visiting Derek’s loft on Friday like he had on Thursday, simply because there wasn’t anything to do. Sitting on the couch while Derek and Isaac trained wasn’t _that_ entertaining. Saturday and Sunday were just as boring, although his arm was practically healed as far as Stiles was concerned.

The strength in his shoulder and arm was surely starting to kick itself back into Stiles’ control. The pain medication wasn’t really needed anymore, except for a couple times when Stiles accidentally bumped it on something or woke up in the night with pains. But Stiles took a couple minutes out of almost every hour of his day to crank out a couple solid push-ups in an attempt to gain back all of his movement and strength.

It seemed to work.

Monday morning, Stiles woke up with one idea circulating through his brain. He wanted to train with Derek and Isaac. There wasn’t any reason as to why couldn’t learn some cool tricks in regards to fighting a werewolf. Sure, he had his baseball bat—and it was fantastic. However, there was no harm in doubling up on his “werewolf fuck’em up” skills by learning a little werewolf moves from Derek.

Not only that, but school was starting in exactly two weeks. There would be tryouts for the fall league of Beacon Hills High’s lacrosse team and Stiles had his eyes set on making _at least_ co-captain this time around. He had gotten significantly better throughout the spring season and ended up winning the final game. Some werewolf training with Derek could give him a slight edge when he’s on the field.

It was only a little after eight o’clock in the morning when Derek opened the door to the loft to find Stiles standing at the entrance. Stiles found the surprised look on Derek’s face to be utterly hilarious. He definitely wasn’t expecting a visit from him; especially since the typical meeting time on weekdays was sometime around noon or in the afternoon.

“What—are you doing here so early?” Derek questioned.

“I just came by to visit. Nothing special.” Stiles said, walking into the loft. “Where’s Isaac? Is he sleeping or something?”

“No...I let him go pick out some new clothes since school is starting in a couple weeks.” Derek explained, letting himself get sidetracked from what he was actually still confused about. “But, what the hell are you actually doing here, Stiles?”

“Wow! Letting Isaac go spend some cash on clothes. That’s so generous of you, Derek!” Stiles acknowledged enthusiastically. Although, he wasn’t sly. He was clearly avoiding the real question and his overly enthusiastic attitude stunk with suspiciousness.

“Stiles—”

“And since you’re always such a generous guy...before you say anything...I want you to—”

“No.” Derek objected. 

“Hey, asshole. You didn’t even get to hear what I was going to ask. You can’t give an answer yet.”

Derek looked up to the murky glass skylight and took in a deep breath—as if he were trying to find the strength to continue his conversation with Stiles. There weren’t any boundaries to what Stiles could potentially ask, but Derek believed that it was too risky to even give him the benefit of the doubt. It would certainly be something ridiculous. Derek just knew it.

“I know that you’re going to ask something stupid, so the answer is already ‘no’.”

Stiles crossed his arms. “I want you to train me—like you do with Isaac. The baseball bat’s not always going to be enough. I might have to rely on my swift combat skills...the ones you’re going to help me develop.”

“You just had your arm practically ripped off!” Derek shouted. “And it was almost ripped off by an omega—the weakest rank of werewolf in existence. What makes you think you’d last against an alpha? Even if you _did_ know how to fight, you’d still hold no chance.”

“Humans can hold their own against werewolves. Look at the Argents. They can fight—”

“Yeah, with the use of electrical torture devices and titanium grip arrowheads meant to pierce through solid metal. You shouldn’t want to be anything like them.”

Stiles hadn’t meant it like that. He didn’t want to be something like the Argents. He didn’t want to run around and shoot arrows into innocent werewolves, torture them, and cut them in half. Derek’s reaction only made Stiles realize his bad choice of example.

“I don’t want to be like the Argents. I just want to learn some moves outside of swinging a tricked out bat. As we can see from my prior experience with werewolves—” Stiles gestured towards his injured shoulder. “—what am I supposed to do if my bat fails its purpose? Just sit back and take the beating? I need something else.”

Derek thought about it for a moment. He figured that there was only so much damage that could transpire through training Stiles in a little hand-to-hand combat. And he didn’t think that learning fighting skills would send Stiles on a warpath into the night with the intention of fighting werewolves. Plus, he was human and he really didn’t understand just how difficult it was for a human to successfully land a punch or kick to a werewolf.

“Alright.” Derek said. “Come stand in front of me.”

A smirk slapped itself across Stiles’ face. He felt so damn proud of himself and happily hopped over to the center of the loft where he took his place in front of Derek’s form. It was slightly intimidating. Was there any reason as to why Derek had to be so...huge? The cement muscles...dark stubble...the masculinity. It was all honestly uncalled for. This was the man that he was supposed to fight against for training?

Derek stood unmoved with his arms crossed dominantly across his chest. He kept his structure bold and statuesque—like an alpha werewolf should. And it was all despite the fact that his mind was stuck focusing on who was standing in front of him. He tried to keep his eyes intense, but he could feel them continuously falling weak to Stiles’ presence.

Stiles was a dork—standing as tenaciously as he possibly could. He was wearing a simple grey t-shirt, those same maroon track pants that he had worn in the pool that one time during the kanima attack, some maroon sneakers, and a ridiculous sweatband around his head that only drew attention to the unbrushed locks of brown hair that he had grown out throughout the summer.

Derek couldn’t help but sweep his gaze over Stiles’ body. Usually, Stiles submerged himself under layers and layers of shirts and jackets. But it was hard to _not_ notice that he actually had a pretty solid chest and striking biceps that stretched the fabric of the grey t-shirt to some visible degree. It was alluring. That was it.

“Hit me.” Derek began.

“Like...a real hit? A punch? You’re actually giving me permission to really hit you? Are you sure?” Stiles babbled, trying to figure out if it was some kind of trick.

“Hit me!”

Without much preparation, Stiles took advantage of the situation and swung a powerful punch in the direction of Derek’s face with his left fist. He didn’t know what he should have expected, but Derek quickly caught his fist with his own hand—squeezing it tightly in his grasp. Stiles felt like he should have seen that outcome coming from a mile away.

“But, how the hell do you—?”

“Werewolves know what you’re going to do before you even make a real move. You swung with your left hand, even though you’re dominant with your right hand. You thought you’d be sneaky.”

“Okay, fine. You outsmarted me. _Cheater_.”

“No. I didn’t catch your fist because you’re predictable and I knew that you’d attempt to swing with your left instead of your right. I caught your fist because I _felt_ your move almost before you even thought it up.”

“How?”

“As a werewolf, I could feel the energy build and radiate from your left wrist and arm. I could hear the prickle of your arm hair spike through the air. That’s how I knew which arm you’d use and how you’d swing.”

“That’s not fair!” Stiles exclaimed. “What the hell?”

“You need to focus on overloading me. Destroy my mind first.” Derek explained. “What happens when you open too many processes on a computer? It gets slow. It can’t handle the situation. So, slow me down mentally and then strike. Now, try again.”

Stiles took three more swings of his fists towards Derek’s face and one swift kick to Derek’s knee, but was still unsuccessful. Unless you counted being shoved down to the ground and having all of your attacks effortlessly deflected and blocked “successful”. Otherwise, Stiles wasn’t too happy. It was harder than he anticipated.

“Okay. Was the push to the ground really necessary?” Stiles complained, helping himself back up to stand.

“You wanted me to train you like how I train Isaac. He doesn’t get it easy, so why should you?”

“Fine.” Stiles readied himself in front of Derek for the second time. “I’m not scared of the challenge.”

Isaac returned to the loft with a couple shopping bags of new clothes. He was surprised to find Stiles and Derek moving around the loft, with Stiles swinging his arms wildly in an attempt to land a hit somewhere— _anywhere_ —on Derek’s body. And if Stiles’ raspy breathing was an indication of anything, the two of them had probably been going at it for a while.

Derek stopped the training session with a wave of his hand, prompting Stiles to essentially waddle over to the couch and collapse down in a heap of heavy breaths and sweat. He couldn’t wrap his mind around how difficult it was to fight a werewolf. He felt like his body was purposely working against him, because he certainly had no problem striking werewolves with the baseball bat. Why were his hands and feet any different?

As Derek disappeared into the hallway towards the back of the loft, Stiles eyed the large shopping bags that Isaac set down on the cement floor. “So…Mr. Lucky Duck just got an all expense paid shopping trip courtesy of Chateau Hale. I hope you took advantage of the opportunity and picked out some good things.”

“I didn’t go overboard.”

Stiles laughed. “That’s sweet.”

“Go and take your things to your room. Peter will be here in a couple minutes and I guess we’ll just get to searching a little early this morning.” Derek said, appearing from the hallway.

Derek tossed over a fresh bottle of cold water to Stiles so that he could properly replenish all of the water he surely lost during the training session. While Isaac took the shopping bags to his own bedroom, Derek walked over and sat on the edge of his bed. He pulled a pair of fresh black socks from the pocket of his jeans and slipped them on before putting on his leather boots—one by one.

Eventually, Peter arrived at the loft with all of his annoyingly smug glory. He always strode into the loft like he owned the place, which sometimes made Stiles wonder as to where Peter actually lived. Maybe he lived in a shoebox somewhere in an alleyway. Maybe he lived back in Hell, seeing as how that was obviously his birthplace.

Like what most people tended to do when they were all collectively getting ready to head out the front door, Derek and the others began to seemingly gravitate towards each other while they finished readying themselves. It kinda looked like they were ready to hit some clubs, but there weren’t any clubs that opened their doors at nine-thirty in the morning—not even in a city like Beacon Heights.

“Hey, wait a minute.” Stiles called out, stopping the three from heading out the loft. He pulled off his sweatband and ran his fingers through the length of his damp hair. “I think we need to change up our search tactics.”

“We’ve already done that.” Peter responded. “Our search methods are perfectly fine. If we keep changing our strides, then we _really_ won’t find the dear ol’ betas.”

“Yeah, but school is starting in a couple weeks. I know there wasn’t any sort of deadline set as to when we’d find Erica and Boyd, but we’re running out of time. The longer the search and come up with nothing...the more likely that they’re—”

“They’re not dead.” Derek argued.

Stiles swallowed. “I’m not saying it’s certain, but the odds—”

“—don’t mean anything, Stiles. They’re alive. We’re going to find them.”

“All I’m saying is that there’s four of us and there’s a huge city out there. We could cover way more areas if we weren’t divided into teams anymore. If we go out there as singles, we can easily search through more places and increase our chance at finding them.” Stiles explained.

The idea was compelling. Time was flying by with each passing week and there wasn’t a sign of the missing betas. There was definitely a haunting possibility that Erica and Boyd were both already dead, but Derek refused to dwell on that belief. He also refused to hear anybody else utter the possibility. He didn’t have a problem shutting people out if they didn’t have anything positive to say.

Stiles’ plan held the potential to speed up the search process. There were a few worrying problems, however. Like the fact that the alpha pack was still loose in the city and a lone team member wouldn’t stand a change. Or the fact that Stiles was just attacked and injured by a group of wild omegas. Or the fact that the plan didn’t guarantee any better results than the previous plan.

“What are you supposed to do if you get ambushed by another pack of werewolves, Stiles? I won’t be there to scare them off for your convenience.” Derek said. “The same goes for everybody else. As singles, we’re weaker.”

“Maybe this is worth the risk. I mean, they’re coming after us anyways. Why not strengthen our chance at locating Erica and Boyd?” Stiles looked around to each of the other guys. It seemed as if they were sold on the idea.

Derek agreed. Yes, it was risky, but so was spending time actively trying to stumble upon the location of the alpha pack. Trying to find one of the most fearsome groups of supernatural monsters was a death wish and it just happened to be one that Derek and the others had been playing around with for the summer. As long as everybody kept in contact with one another during the search—stating locations and announcing potential clues—things would be fine.

After Stiles’ father left for work in the morning, Stiles would immediately zoom off to the loft because he wanted to get as much time as he could with Derek for his daily “werewolf fuck’em up” training. While he was still very much unable to land a serious hit to Derek, there was some progress. The work would eventually pay off...at least, that’s what Stiles hoped.

The afternoon and post-midnight searches continued on as regular, despite the change up in how the gang searched. There weren’t any pairs anymore. Derek and Stiles weren’t together anymore to search one half of Beacon Heights, just like how Peter and Isaac weren’t together anymore to search the opposite half of the city. The four were divided and took on whatever section of the city they wanted to search on a given day or night.

Admittedly, Stiles did miss working alongside Derek. The search became a much lonelier occupation, which was weird considering the fact that Derek wasn’t exactly the most lively of companions. Nevertheless, Stiles missed the conversations, the snarky barks, the eyerolls...the comfortable feeling of being next to Derek for hours. But Stiles focused on the fact that searching wasn’t for his own enjoyment; rather it was for finding two missing beta werewolves.

Thursday morning, the training was of a more intense variety. It was just Stiles and Derek, because Isaac had stayed over at Scott’s house again. This time, Stiles had been invited too, but he had declined on account of needing to be at the loft early enough to train. It still didn’t mean that Stiles wasn’t confused and slightly jealous about the budding friendship, though.

“They’re friends—” Stiles grunted, dishing out a few punches in the direction of Derek’s torso. “—just— what’s happening with them—I don’t—does Isaac only have one fucking friend?”

The two practically swirled around the loft in combat. The sounds of their breathing, grunts, strikes, and words were the only things that flavored the air around them. Otherwise, it was pretty quiet. It allowed for more focus, despite the fact that Stiles was ranting out some aggravation.

“Are you jealous?” Derek asked, twisting to the side to dodge one of Stiles’ oncoming jabs. “Do _you_ only have one fucking friend?” He repeated, using the words against Stiles.

“I’m not jealous—maybe somewhat.” Stiles kicked. “I don’t know. I guess I’m kinda used to him ditching me, y’know? First it was Allison, now it’s Isaac. Wait. What if they’re dating? Do you smell Scott’s scent on Isaac when he’s here?”

“Yes.”

Stiles’ eyes grew wide. “Wait, you do? Oh my god. Scotty likes dudes, too! _Oh my god._ I’m going to have to be the best man at their wedding. Isaac’s going to be in my life forever.” He whined childishly.

“I smell myself on you.” Derek admitted. “It means nothing. It’s just because you’re over here every day. The scent clings to you. Just because Isaac smells like Scott doesn’t mean anything. It means he’s sleeping over at Scott’s house, probably using a spare blanket that also has Scott’s scent blended into it…”

“ _Shit!_ Does that mean that Scott’s been able to smell you on me? He probably knows something. We should have been more careful, dammit. This is all your fault.” Stiles babbled madly.

“He’s only been a werewolf for about seven months. It takes a while to learn how to save particular werewolf scent signatures to memory. Either that or he’d have to really focus on something that has my scent to cross-examine the scent on you. Odd are that he hasn’t learned how to do that and doesn’t bother trying to figure out who you’re hanging around.”

“Okay, good.” Stiles chuckled. “So, I wonder if my scent is all over you? Especially since I’m here all the time. If other werewolves knew my scent, do you think they’d have questions about why you smell like me—”

Stiles’ fist slammed across Derek’s jaw in a flash. It was unbelievable and sent both men spiraling downwards into utter shock and confusion. As Derek toppled backwards in shock, Stiles grabbed his fist and began to rub at it mindlessly while he tried to figure out if he was dreaming or something. He couldn’t believe that he finally got a hit on Derek.

“Good…” Derek murmured, stroking his jaw. “We’ll kick up the difficulty.”

Derek regained his stance, unknowingly letting his naked torso flex. He was left slightly confused as to how Stiles managed to land such a power punch, but the answer was simple. Derek let himself get distracted. The conversation about scents and scents transferring to people’s bodies had obviously taken away from the focus that Derek needed to maintain during the fight with Stiles.

“So, how do we kick up the difficulty to this little experience? Do I have to punch you in the face two times?” Stiles laughed, slamming his fist into his empty palm.

“Let’s move onto escape training.” Derek suggested. “Stand in front of me and face the couch.”

Stiles complied with an innocent shrug. He spun around to face the couch, only to feel Derek’s body press up against his backside. Derek’s arm then wrapped around Stiles’ neck, tugging into a snug headlock. It wasn’t too tight, though. He could still breathe and move his neck if needed.

However, it was slightly uncomfortable. If not for the fact that Derek’s arm was pressed against his adam’s apple, then for the fact that Derek’s body being against his backside felt incredibly intimate. Feeling the warmth and boldness of Derek’s body made his stomach clench up with nerves. It created a pulsing shock that seemed to string pleasure from his belly-button down to his toes. Luckily, he was pretty skilled at controlling his body. If it weren’t for all of the times that he had to focus hard to save himself from embarrassment moments during lacrosse practice, then he probably would have had a problem with Derek.

“What do you do if a supernatural gets you into this position?” Derek asked, reaffirming his hold around Stiles’ neck.

“Uh, tell him to back the fuck off and buy me some expensive dinner first?” Stiles joked, sneaking a peek downwards towards the front of his pants just to make sure he wasn’t bulging. He was fine. The ‘embarrassment meter’ was at a stale zero.

Derek sighed. “Focus.”

“Alright. Uhmm...I don’t know. Scratch up their arms with my nails? Try to gouge out their eyes?”

“Nope.” Derek answered. “With one of your free hands, you’re going to grab the thumb of the hand that’s binding your neck. When you get a good grip on it, bend it backwards until it snaps.”

“That’s—that’s just gross, Derek.” Stiles exaggerated jokingly. “Breaking thumbs is gross. Werewolves are gross.”

“A werewolf attacker will heal incredibly quickly—despite the broken bone. But it’ll distract them just enough so that they’ll loosen their grip on you so that you can break out of their hold.”

Derek removed his arm from around Stiles’ neck, freeing him from the staged headlock. Stiles stepped forward and rubbed at his neck. But the freedom only lasted a moment, because when Stiles turned around to face Derek once again, Derek’s arm lunged forward and his hand gripped around Stiles’ neck— _softly_.

“What do you do if a supernatural gets you into this position?” Derek asked. The positioning was different, but the question was the same as previously asked. And damn, Stiles hated quizzes.

Nevertheless, Stiles was surprised and impressed at how fast Derek moved. He was swift, yet fantastically sturdy. Stiles didn’t even have time to prepare himself before Derek’s hand was flying towards his throat and clutching around it.

And although Stiles knew that he was supposed to give Derek an answer, he was too busy internally laughing at how unintimidating Derek was. He just wasn’t scary. Derek’s face was undoubtedly rugged, but there was a certain softness inside of his eyes that didn’t make Stiles want to tremble. It almost made him want to melt.

“Okay...now I can poke the werewolf in the eyes, right? My hands are free. The werewolf is standing right in front of me—obviously not trying to kill me by asphyxiation, because he could just snap my neck instead—but yeah. I’m right about the eye gouging, right?”

“Nope.” Derek shook his head, smugly. “With one of your free hands, grab the thumb of the hand that’s around your neck—”

“Ha-ha-ha. _Funny_.” Stiles deadpanned. He shoved away Derek’s arm, to which Derek happily allowed as he smiled to himself.

“That wasn’t a joke, though. That _is_ what you should do. The goal is to hurt the supernatural creature just enough to get them to release their hold and power over you. You’re no good when you’re at their mercy, understand?”

Stiles nodded. He closed his eyes and bent his neck from side-to-side, prompting a couple popping sounds. He was slightly more content. But it was so hot in the loft and the heat seemed to only be intensified by the training with Derek. Stiles hated feeling sticky with warm sweat, unless it was the result of something amazing—like being able to thoroughly enjoy a jerk off session without a busted shoulder on his dominant arm—something that he had still yet to get around to doing.

“Next—” Derek said. “—get on the ground like you’re preparing to do some sit-ups.”

Stiles pulled off his t-shirt and tossed it over to Derek’s bed. The fresh air blasting across his bare chest felt great, despite the fact that the fresh air was warm and felt like oven fumes. The sweat felt like somewhat of an accomplishment, though. There he was, training with an alpha werewolf, learning how to fight back against other supernatural creatures. It was pretty satisfying.

Derek only let himself stare at Stiles’ shirtlessness for a mere second before he willed his mind back to the training. Although, he felt slightly awkward about the next training position he had chosen, because Stiles had to go and rip off his t-shirt. He didn’t want to get himself sidetracked, but it was somewhat difficult.

Stiles had a surprisingly toned body, built of lean muscle—probably sculpted through lacrosse. His biceps and back muscles flexed when he had pulled off the t-shirt and tossed it over to the bed. Not to mention the patch of chest hair between his pectorals and the trail of sweat-matted hair that lead down…down past the line of Stiles’ low hanging track pants and the waistband of his boxers.

Stiles huffed, lowering himself down to the ground. He laid his back down on the cold cement and kept his arms alongside the length of his body. He just hoped that Derek wasn’t really about to make him start doing sit-ups. He hated doing them in P.E and he knew that he’d hate them during Derek’s training. He didn’t need spectacular abs...not at all.

Derek knelt down to the cement ground and pulled himself closer to Stiles’ body. His knee slid in-between Stiles’ open legs and planted itself firmly, allowing himself some stability. He hunched himself over Stiles’ body and placed his right forearm across Stiles’ bare chest to keep his trainee from wiggling around too much during the exercise.

When everything was all prepped and Derek was ready to begin the exercise, he realized just how intimate the position both felt and appeared. Acknowledging Stiles’ physique and incorporating the “missionary sex position” of all workout exercises into the training made Derek feel like the world was out to get him. As if fate purposely stacked the events together. But he knew that he had already picked out the next exercise position even before Stiles decided to rip off his t-shirt. Still, he fought with himself over whether or not to change to doing something else.

However, Derek was completely oblivious to the fact that his knee was nudging itself ever so slightly against Stiles’ crotch—pushing delicately against Stiles’ balls. Stiles could feel himself twitch inside of his boxers at the unintentional stimulation. Derek was only trying to get himself into a comfortable enough position to start the training exercise, but here Stiles was, getting aroused because of Derek’s knee? Because he hadn’t gotten off in a couple weeks? Stiles felt like such an asshole...but his mind wasn’t necessarily in control. It felt just felt good.

“So...let me guess… ‘what do I do if a supernatural gets me into this position?’” Stiles asked.

It was his attempt to distract his own mind and hopefully his body. If he could just get around to executing the exercise, then he wouldn’t have to deal with an embarrassing ordeal. He could finish and run off to the bathroom, or down to his jeep, or back home. It didn’t matter, just as long as he wasn’t fully erect and throbbing against Derek’s kneecap.

“You’ve learned.” Derek mocked. “But, yes. What are you supposed to do now?”

“Well, I would go with your sadistic answer of breaking the creature’s thumbs, but I feel like you’re trying to trick me right now. So, I’m gonna go with _this_ —”

Stiles quickly jammed his knee into Derek’s crotch, making the werewolf release his hold and pop up in momentary discomfort. He took advantage of the situation and pushed Derek away from his own frame, rolling the two of them over and leaving the initial start position reversed. Now, Derek was the one pressed down on the ground while Stiles was in-between his knees.

“Knee the asshole in the crotch and them flip them over—” Stiles started proudly, but was silenced on account of Derek grabbing both of Stiles arms and rolling the two of them back over again. The positions were back to the way they began again.

That was hot—simply put. The aggressive grabbing and flipping and rolling...Derek even let out a small, deep grunt when he rolled them both back over to their original positions. Neither of them were talking, but rather staring at one another with a consuming gaze. The breathing between them seemed to synchronize as the heat of the loft began to feel more like embracing warmth. Energy had been passed between the two and it had felt like _sensual_ electricity. And by the look in Derek’s puzzled, enchanted face...he had felt the same thing.

Stiles was fully hard now. There wasn’t any going back. Neither his boxers nor his pants were doing very much at keeping himself ‘locked down’. Luckily, Derek’s knee wasn’t pressing against his crotch anymore and Derek wasn’t even looking down in that direction. He was too busy mapping out Stiles’ flushed face with his eyes. Meanwhile, Stiles couldn’t keep his eyes from scanning Derek’s beautiful face, his huge hairy chest, the nipples, the muscle, the sweat…

For a moment there, Stiles could swear that he felt some sort of gravitational pull towards Derek. It was like all of those movies he had seen before—where two people just seemed to stare into the each other’s eyes and their lips pulled closer and closer. It felt just like that, except Stiles caught himself before he could let his lips spontaneously crash up into Derek’s.

“Did I hurt you?” Derek asked, breaking his gaze.

“No…” Stiles hung onto that word as he instinctively looked down to the one area of his body that felt different than anywhere else. Of course, Derek looked to make sure that Stiles was telling truth—that he wasn’t injured—only to let his werewolf senses kick into control and smell the arousal radiating off of Stiles’ body in walls of thick lust.

“I’m sorry.” Derek said.

“No, it’s me. I’m sorry. I just—I haven’t done _anything_ since before my whole shoulder situation. The exercise and moving around and just...I don’t know...being tossed around. I guess my body got a little excited…” Stiles laughed awkwardly, watching Derek stand up from the position they were in.

Derek rubbed at the back of his neck, trying to avert his eyes to anywhere else in the loft. He tried to figure out what to say without sounding too awkward, but it was difficult. The situation was a little awkward. All that he could manage out of his mouth was a simple, “It’s normal.”

“Yep.” Stiles pressed his lips together innocently and stood up from the ground. He placed his hands over his crotch to cover up his protruding bulge and picked up his shirt from Derek’s bed. “Anyways, I—uh. I’m just gonna get home…”

“It’s fine. We’ll continue the training some other day.” Derek looked towards the ground. “You can take a day off of searching. Isaac, Peter, and I will be okay.”

The whole situation was already ten-thousand times embarrassing and Derek didn’t want to increase those numbers. He just wanted to let Stiles leave without having to sit through a bunch of conversation. He also didn’t want to embarrass Stiles, despite being able to only sniff out minimal levels of embarrassment and anxiousness. The main scents that Derek could smell, however, consisted of pride, excitement, confusion, concern, and arousal. If anything, Stiles was very comfortable with himself and his body.

Stiles kept his hands covered over himself as he exited the loft. He shut the door behind himself and hurriedly put his shirt back on. He couldn’t believe that that just actually happened. That was the price he paid for not indulging in a little ‘Stiles-Time’ everyday. Even with the torn up shoulder, he should have just went with lefty, even if it felt completely different.

It was long overdue and Stiles had no intention of torturing himself any longer.


	19. A Week's Worth of Pent-Up Frustration...Among Other Things.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles finally treats himself to a little alone time and manages to come up with more than just the same old product of stimulation. He also thinks up a new plan for the alphas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this chapter is probably the shortest out of the rest. This is also the chapter that's responsible for the "Mature" rating. I'm still not sure if I selected the right rating, this could be explicit. If enough people find that this is explicit, I'll change the rating.
> 
> Enjoy!

Stiles’ drive back to his house was anything but a leisure cruise down the highway into Beacon Hills. It was more of a madman’s dash to the privacy of his own bedroom where he could finally get the warmth of his hands on his own body. He was still extremely hot and bothered by the workout session with Derek and he couldn’t do anything about his own raging hard-on whilst trying to focus on the road.

When he finally barged his way into the house, he called out into the emptiness to make sure that his father wasn’t home. The police cruiser wasn’t in the driveway and Stiles was already pretty sure that his father wasn’t going to get home anytime soon, but he just wanted to be extra certain that he wouldn’t get interrupted and walked-in on during his alone time. There wasn’t any harm in taking extra precautions.

He was already grabbing and rubbing at himself through his pants by the time he got up the staircase and into the comfort of his bedroom. It wasn’t about keeping things slow and taking time. Stiles was far too worked up from the somewhat embarrassing and erotic episode with Derek back at the loft, as well as he was exceedingly restless from having not touched himself for such an extended period of time.

Stiles kicked off his sneakers and pulled his t-shirt up and over his head, tossing everything around aimlessly without any regard to where things landed. As he made his way over to his bed, he maneuvered himself out of his trackpants—slipping out of them effortlessly and without tripping himself over the fabric. He remained just as eager and determined to get himself off as he was in the jeep ride to his house, but he could feel the excitement sizzle throughout his body as time moved forward.

Stiles toppled backwards onto his bed—letting his body settle down into the softness of his pillows and sheets. He immediately curled his fists and toes into the sheets. It was as if he was releasing a small portion of sexual tension into the fabric of his bedding. It felt damn good to grab and claw into something while he closed his eyes and let his body writhe into the cool softness.

Stiles kept his eyes closed and brought one of his hands up to his chest. While he tweaked gently at his nipples with one hand, he let his other hand travel down his abdomen, past the elastic band of his boxer briefs, and down to grip around himself. His toes curled deep into his bedsheets while he caressed his body and let his mind wander wildly.

A stream of fantasizes flickered behind his eyelids. His mind raced around through a gallery of pictures and people that shot his body up with bursts of tingling pleasure. _Lydia_ —with her gorgeous figure and luscious lips—whizzed through his mind for a quick moment. Yes, he was finally getting over his crush on Lydia, but in the moment of heat he couldn’t stop his mind from going there. _Victor_ —that hot dude from Lydia’s party popped into his mind for a second. The thought of actually having said ‘yes’ to going over to his house was hot. _Danny_ —with his fucking perfect tan muscles, and dimples, and skilled hacker fingers… and then _Derek_ —just….Derek’s _everything_.

Thinking about Derek felt somewhat forbidden and Stiles didn’t actually know why. It wasn’t like Derek hadn’t occasionally flown through his mind during his alone-time sessions in the past. After all, they had a really good ‘I hate you’ thing going on during Peter’s alpha tirade and the Kanima onslaught. And fantasizing about the friendly neighborhood asshole bad boy was practically the most cliché masturbation fantasy in the world.

But everything felt different now. Of course, Derek was still stubborn as fuck, seemed to be stuck in perpetual “grump-land”, and could be the same jerky asshole when he wanted to be. But there seemed to be more of a foundation to their relationship. It felt more than just the two of them tolerating each other to get through the summer, despite that actually being what it started off like. Now, talking to one another and standing side-by-side seemed normal. Not only that, but it felt weird _not_ being in some sort of contact with Derek throughout the days.

It wasn’t until Stiles let his mind wander even further into thought that he realized the reason as to why thinking about Derek felt so different. It was because he felt closer to Derek. It was more than just fantasizing about the hot and mysterious bad boy that wore leather jackets and was actually a potentially villainous werewolf with strong muscles and snappy fangs. His thoughts about Derek now existed on an entirely different level.

Stiles couldn’t stop thinking about all of the new things he felt about Derek—things that were entirely different than what he had felt before the summer. The way Derek always tried to act so confident and how he always wanted to take change and lead everybody else was cute. The way Derek’s eyebrows creased in confusion when he didn’t understand something or when he just didn’t know how to respond was even cuter. And then there was the way that the corner of Derek’s lips twitched upwards sometimes when Stiles said something funny or stupid, and the way Derek always tried to hide his almost smile from being seen. That was the cutest.

He also couldn’t stop imagining other things about Derek. Like his hands. Stiles could imagine them caressing his body—undressing him slowly. He could imagine Derek dragging his claws gently down the skin of Stiles’ chest. He could imagine what it would feel like to have his boxers tugged down frustratingly slow, but he imagined that the anticipation would feel amazing.

Stiles also recalled all of the little grunts that Derek usually made during training. They were innocent during training, but Stiles tried to envision what it would be like hearing similar grunts in a less innocent setting. He imagined that they’d sound powerful and focused and determined. Perhaps they’d even sound pleasured and repeated depending on what activity or _position_ Derek wanted to try out.

Stiles pulled the band of his boxers down just a little bit so that he could tug himself free. As he continued to work over himself with increased pressure and precise stimulation, Stiles worked hard to mix porno-esque hook-up fantasies into his own, very real experiences. Like all of the times that Stiles and Derek sat alone together in the jeep in the middle of a dark, desolate road. Or that time at the charity auction when the two of them pretended to get it on. Or practically all of the times when Stiles walked into the loft, only to find Derek shirtless, out of breath, and sweaty.

Stiles worked himself faster and rougher. A feeling of heat washed over Stiles’ body like a crashing wave—prickling every inch of his skin with feverish comfort. Before he knew it, his body tensed, his breathing quickened, and he groaned out in ecstasy. He would have preferred it to have lasted longer, but he had never really been the one to savor his time with that kind of thing. And especially after holding out for days without even the slightest of touch, it would have never lasted any longer.

He fell back down into the softness of his sheets. His breathing and lips quivered with post-orgasmic delight. As he stared up at the ceiling of his bedroom with stars in his eyes, he mindlessly ran his fingers down his chest and ribcage. He let his body come down from its high and let his mind wander through other, less explicit thoughts.

For some reason, Stiles always did deep thinking after orgasm. He figured that it was because he always felt relaxed and free of stress after it happened. Not even the cooling mess on his abdomen and chin deterred him from taking some time to think about things. He thought about what his “superhero” name would be once he trained enough with Derek. He thought about being a popular student for junior year. He thought about what Scott had said a while ago about “already smelling enough” in Stiles’ room, and then he wondered how to mask the scent of sex from werewolves.

Scent.

A potent scent—unable to be masked or hidden from werewolves.

Maybe that was something to be used against the alphas. After all, scent was obviously something very important and very useful to werewolves. It was certainly something that Derek used during all of the nightly search escapades. It was something that the alphas were purposely covering with ‘block-bane’. It was what ultimately got Matthew murdered in those woods. Perhaps a scent would be helpful in luring the alphas into a trap.

Stiles got up from his bed. He grabbed a clean pair of boxers and a new t-shirt from his dresser and then hurried across the hallway into his bathroom. He was desperately in need of a shower—if not because of the training session sweat, then for the week’s worth of built up frustration that was splattered across his stomach. Plus, showers always seemed to help Stiles focus on ideas.

He got into the shower and let the hot water wash over his body as he scrubbed. _Scents_ , he thought. They were extremely important and could potentially be used as a way to fuck over the alpha pack in all kinds of awesome ways. The gears in Stiles’ mind started to steam and clank into quick motion. At first, he thought that he could engineer some sort of duplicate scent from Matthew to trick the alphas into thinking that their kill was still somehow alive. But then another, a better idea, popped into Stiles’ head.

He figured that since there were so many forms of wolfsbane—each of which could be used for various purposes—then there had to be at least one form that could attract werewolves. A form of wolfsbane that acted like some sort of beacon. Stiles thought that if he could get his hands on a werewolf-attracting wolfsbane, then he could attract the alphas to himself and trap them.

It was a brilliant idea in Stiles’ own head. He knew that he could probably make it work, but he needed to know if such form of wolfsbane actually existed. He couldn’t really risk driving down to the animal clinic and asking Deaton because he’d surely alert Scott. But he knew that there was something else that possibly held the key to what he was looking for.

When Stiles finished taking his shower and jumped into some clean clothes, he picked up his cell phone and called Lydia. He wasn’t going to drag Lydia into the whole alpha pack mess and ask her something stupid, like to help him search the world for the wolfsbane he wanted. Instead, he needed to ask her if she still had the _Bestiary_ in her possession after having deciphered a piece of it with Allison during the Kanima Crisis.

“Hello?” Lydia answered.

“Hey—hi—Lydia.” Stiles started. He was slightly nervous as to how she would respond and if she would even want to be of any help regarding supernatural shenanigans. “I have a question.”

Lydia sighed. “Well, could you please ask it already? I have a million things to do today. Jackson’s getting back from London in a couple hours and I have to pick him up from the airport.”

“He’s coming back?” Stiles groaned.

“Did you think he’d spontaneously uproot and move across the Atlantic for no reason? After everything that happened? No way.” Lydia paused. “Wait—was that the question you wanted to ask?”

“No, I was wondering if you still have the Bestiary that you and Allison used to figure out that Jackson was being controlled. I need it.” Stiles explained, hoping that she would confirm still having it.

“The flashdrive? No, but Allison gave me a copy of its contents just in case. Most of it is written in Archaic Latin, so I’m pretty sure that you’ll have a lot of fun trying to figure out what it all means.”

Stiles’ confidence momentarily faltered, but he was sure that he’d be able to do it. Translation wasn’t much of a problem when he actually thought about it. He was nearly certain that there’d be translation software available somewhere on the internet for him to find. If not, he could probably end up bribing Lydia to help him just find the wolfsbane he needed.

“I’ll be able to do it.” Stiles confirmed. “Can I drop by and pick it up?”

“Just be quick about it.”

Stiles got himself over to Lydia’s house relatively quickly. He parked on the street and walked up to the front door, which was an interesting journey because of the long driveway. When he knocked on the door, Lydia answered and handed him the extra flashdrive. Stiles asked her to not tell anybody about him collecting the Bestiary and she nonchalantly agreed. The two exchanged goodbyes and Stiles raced back down to his jeep.

When he got back to his house and plugged the flashdrive into his laptop, he was frustrated to find that Lydia had been telling the truth. Most of the pages were indeed written out in Archaic Latin. All of the pictures on the drive were scanned images of an old book—probably the original Bestiary. It looked cool, but Stiles wished that the original writers of the book had decided to write the damn thing in _modern_ English.

There were hundreds and hundreds of images, so Stiles just clicked through them until something caught his eyes. After several minutes, he stumbled upon some pages that had graphic drawings of plants. Some of them looked relatively similar to the wolfsbane he had handled before. From there, it was easy to draw the conclusion that he had successfully located the wolfsbane section of the Bestiary.

He opened up another tab in his browser and Googled, “Archaic Latin to English Translator”. When he hit search, he was met with numerous results. Some of which were connected to sketchy looking websites that probably had viruses and others were offering free Latin tutoring lessons. Luckily, he did manage to find some software programs, but none of which were free. He had to purchase them.

Stiles wrote down the names of the different purchasable software programs and then headed over the nearest office supply store. If anything, that was where he’d be able to find translator programs. He just hoped that everything he was doing would pay off in the end. After all, he was about to shell out cash for a program to translate the Bestiary...and he wasn’t even sure if the translated text would reveal a form of wolfsbane that he needed. He realized that it could very much be a waste of time and money.

He quickly put those thoughts aside and tried to focus on the fact that this could help stop the alphas. It was for the greater good. If he could lure them into a trap and catch them, then it would only be a couple short steps away from finding out where they put Erica and Boyd through methods of interrogation.

Eventually, he found translator software that specialized in translating old forms of language into modern ones. It was only eighty dollars, which was very cheap when it stood next to the other extravagant software programs that ranked up into the mid two-hundreds. Plus, he scored a small discount by telling the cashier that he was starting school in a couple weeks and needed the program for some advanced classes.

The program took almost an hour to finish installing on Stiles’ laptop, but when it was finally done, Stiles was ready to jump into work. Unfortunately, the translation software didn’t scan in pictures of text and convert them into translated pages. Instead, Stiles spent another forty-five minutes typing six pages worth of wolfsbane descriptions into a large browser box so that he could let the program work its magic.

Surprisingly, most of the plants listed in the Bestiary weren’t forms of wolfsbanes. And according to the translated descriptions that were listed beside the hand-drawn sketches of each plant, most of them had designated effects on _non-lycan_ creatures. It was all very interesting to read—most of it made Stiles happy that he hadn’t come in contact with any of the creatures listed—but he was running out of translated text to find his solution.

It was infuriating because it was clear that the Bestiary didn’t list all known forms of wolfsbane, despite the fact that hundreds of species existed. And even the loosely translated descriptions that Stiles found were for species of wolfsbane that were useless to his situation. Some of them were kinds that Stiles had already come in contact with—like the one he was infected with at the charity auction or the ones the alphas used to hide their scents.

Stiles whittled his way down to the last translated plant description he had available for himself. It was for a plant called, _Lupinus Rivularis_. It was incredibly strange because when Stiles originally glanced over the drawn picture of the plant, he thought that it was a form of special wolfsbane. The tall and thin plant with vibrant purple flowering buds was a very familiar plant. In fact, it was a plant that Stiles had personally seen countless times scattered around _Beacon Brook_.

Yet, when Stiles began to read through the translated description of _Lupinus Rivularis_ , he found out that it wasn’t wolfsbane at all. Instead, he read about how its looks fooled both humans and creatures for centuries into thinking that it was a form of wolfsbane. Lycanthropes stayed clear from its path. Its nickname actually translated into, “Trickster’s Weed”, because it had the ability to make somebody exude the scent of a powerful werewolf—when burned and dusted upon the skin of a warm blooded being.

It was exactly what Stiles needed. No, it wasn’t wolfsbane. It was something better. It was an easily findable plant that would allow him to give off the scent of a powerful werewolf—an alpha. And if he could prepare it properly, then he could effortlessly lure the alphas to his location during a search and capture them. That was it. That was the plan that was going to finish everything off. Stiles could feel it in his bones.


	20. The Alpha's Trap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles puts his trap into motion.

It was the last Thursday of the month, which meant that Stiles’ father would head down to Sacramento on Friday for July’s conference weekend. He would be gone for practically the entire weekend, only to come back late Sunday night, which left Stiles the entire weekend to put a permanent end to the alpha werewolves and find the missing betas. All he needed to do was gather some of the fake wolfsbane, fix up the ash, put together a game plan...and decide on whether or not to let Derek in on the plan.

There was no way in hell that Derek would ever actually approve of the plan. He would complain and groan about how dangerous it was to play around with the alpha pack and how stupid it was to think that the plan would ever work. But Stiles’ brain worked in different ways. He wasn’t scared of going up against the alphas. His mind didn’t revolve around all of the terrible things that could happen. Call him impulsive, but it worked for him.

He figured that if he was meant to die by the hands of the alpha pack, he would have been killed back at the charity auction. But he wasn’t. He was only left infected with a non-lethal form of wolfsbane. Clearly, Derek gave them way too much credit. In fact, the rogue omega pack appeared to be more dangerous than the alphas.

The alpha pack was obviously dumber than Derek made them out to be. They spent all of their time stealing jewels and hiding away behind block-bane. It was cowardice at its finest. Stiles was sure that they could be outsmarted and he was even more certain that he could be the one to outsmart them.

Stiles drove down to Beacon Brook, which was a circuit of rushing streams in the forested area near the Beacon Hills Marina. It was a pretty cool and secluded area that was typically used as a hangout spot for teenagers when sundown came around. It was actually the same place that Stiles took Scott after the whole Allison breakup debacle because it seemed to be away from everything and was definitely relaxing. But it was also that place where Stiles had frequently seen the “Trickster’s Weed” growing in abundance.

He secured the plants without having to remain inconspicuous because the brook was completely void of other people. It was only noon, so most people were at work or doing something else with their day. Nobody else was ripping plants out of the ground and planning to take down a pack of vicious werewolves. It only really made Stiles stop to think about how abnormal his life had gotten since Scott had gotten bit.

After Stiles was finished down at the brook, he went back home with his extra large bouquet of faux-wolfsbane. He didn’t have any plans to the loft for the nightly search on account of the embarrassment from the whole exercise boner spectacle. He thought it best to just let things settle and let the air between Derek and himself clear out—both metaphorically and literally.

Nonetheless, the extra time away from the loft offered up more time to work towards formulating a strong plan for the weekend. He already had ideas cooking in his mind, but if he wanted to put an end to the alphas and find Derek’s missing betas, then everything needed to be perfect. He couldn’t leave room for even the slightest error. It could mean both his life and the lives of both Erica and Boyd.

The next day, Stiles couldn’t head over to the loft until one o’clock in the afternoon because his father decided to take a somewhat late start to his drive to Sacramento. Unsurprisingly, Stiles didn’t receive any sort of text messages from Derek asking why he didn’t show early for training. Stiles didn’t expect Derek to text him about training. Hell, he wasn’t even sure if Derek was comfortable with seeing him yet. It was difficult to face somebody after you accidentally got hard on them.

The elevator ride up to Derek’s floor and the walk down the corridor to the loft’s entrance was an anxiety trip on steroids. He didn’t know how they hell he was supposed to look Derek in the face without thinking about what he did after he got home from the training session. Was he a bad person for fantasizing about Derek? What if Derek could somehow sense it? What if he could smell…things? Stiles forced himself to hang onto some courage as he approached the door. He just hoped that he wouldn’t end up mortified.

Derek opened the door when Stiles knocked. He didn’t appear to look any different than normal—same broody facial expression, same thick eyebrows, same chiseled jawline. He didn’t look as if he were weirded out and mentally attempting to forget everything that happened during the last training practice. Maybe he had already forgotten about it and waved it away as nothing more than another random event of the summer. Even so, it brought Stiles some comfort to know that he didn’t have to walk on glass.

“What’s up?” Stiles asked, trying to sound casual.

Derek raised an eyebrow. “Hopefully, not you again.”

“Okay... _cute_.” Stiles scoffed sarcastically.

Derek didn’t seem to be bothered by the whole ordeal. The fact that he was actually making jokes was proof enough. He also didn’t seem to look confused by any _lingering_ scents, which meant that Stiles could officially relax and get back to working with Derek without a mountain of awkwardness sitting on own his shoulders.

“Why didn’t come to train this morning?” Derek asked, letting Stiles walk into the loft.

“I had to wait for my dad to leave. He’s going down to Sacramento for another conference this weekend. He won’t be back until Sunday night, so I can get down with some non-stop searching.”

“Good.” Derek started. “Then we can all start right now. We still have a lot of area to cover before you and Isaac get back to school.”

Stiles nodded. “Where’s Goldilocks and the sociopathic bear?”

Derek gestured towards the hallway, “Isaac’s getting dressed. And I’ll give you one guess as to where Peter’s hanging out.” He looked towards the spiral staircase.

The four guys eventually set out into the city to search for the betas—each of them choosing their own area to investigate. Stiles decided to take an area of the city that was located close to the location he had been eyeing the previous night during his scheming. He had taken to Google Maps to find a good enclosed space to trap the alphas. He ultimately found a steel mill that was short on windows and exits. It would be the perfect place to trap and contain a pack of alphas...after the workers all went home.

Stiles surveyed the surrounding area, but it was extremely deprived of abandoned places. He couldn’t imagine that the alpha pack would chose to hide out in a place that was frequently visited by civilians. He also couldn’t imagine a pack of alphas taking over an already occupied building. Otherwise, he probably would have heard about it or the news or something.

He continued to weave through sections of the city for hours. He didn’t have any special abilities to sniff out any traces of the alphas, nor did he have the ability to sense and hear anything out of the ordinary. All he had was his intuition to guide him through things and sort out what seemed out of place and potentially suspect. He just hoped that Derek and the others were doing better in terms of luck.

Unfortunately, luck didn’t seem to run through the veins of anybody else in Derek’s search team. At least, that’s what Stiles managed to piece together after he weathered through Derek’s solemn attitude when everybody regrouped at the loft for some quick take-out dinner. It was supposed to be a relaxing break after pounding the pavement for hours, but Derek spent most of it quietly eating through a carton of chow mein noodles.

The rest of the evening—way off into the early hours of the next day—carried out as the same thing. There was very little to keep Stiles’ interest peaked as he fought through his own tiredness during the search. Even the occasional update text messages from Derek didn’t really seem to help. He ended up driving down some of the same roads that he had already driven down in past explorations.

It was maybe just little sad that Stiles actually missed searching the town with Derek. He missed the conversations—even if they were short and filled with Derek’s _“lovely”_ personality. But at least it gave him something to react to. The conversations managed to add some light to the seriousness and darkness of the whole search operation.

When Stiles finally got back into Beacon Hills after a night of non-stop searching, the sun was already beginning to rise. It would have been nice to stop and watch the beautiful sunrise overtake the town, but Stiles was in dire need of sleep. He needed to get off the road and into his bed before he fell asleep at the wheel. And when he finally did manage to get into his house, he practically crawled up the staircase, into his bedroom, and crashed onto his bed without changing into pajamas.

Stiles was shaken awake by the sound of a loud crash and rumble that seemed to rattle the walls and windows of his bedroom. It was thunder. He popped up from his bed—still slightly post-slumber dazed—and wiped his drool onto the sleeve of his shirt. He stumbled over to his bedroom window, only to see that he couldn’t really see anything at all. The rain was pelting against the glass so hard and so quickly that it was impossible to see anything through the blur of water.

He picked up his phone to see what time it was and to check to see if he received any text messages. It was already two in the afternoon and he had four text messages waiting for him. They were all from Derek, which was somewhat surprising. He didn’t know that Derek could be so text-talkative. Nonetheless, the first text consisted of Derek saying that the search would be cancelled until the storm passed through. The subsequent text messages consisted of a simple “hello” and a “do you respond to these things” message that seemed to have gotten sent as a duplicate.

Stiles shot back a quick, “Sorry. I slept in longer than I meant to. Big storm. No searching. I got it.”

Derek’s cancellation of search plans wasn’t all bad. It gave Stiles more time to finalize everything in his plan so that it could unfold without error later that night. He vaguely remembered something about what Derek said regarding rain acting as an amplifier for scent particles. It would help make the Trickster’s Weed even more potent of a scent. He just hoped that the rain wouldn’t be too strong and disrupt what he needed to do.

The thunderstorm’s persistence was annoying. As the hours in the day came and went, and nighttime eventually draped over the town, the storm remained—only allowing small moments of slight downpour relief. He had gotten about seven “flash flood warning” advisories on his cell phone and there was nothing to do around his house. Even playing videogames and watching movies seemed entirely boring.

He put on some clothes that would keep him somewhat warm throughout the rainy night, despite the fact that he was sure he’d eventually get soaked. That’s the way it always happened. The sturdy jacket and pair of shoes he picked out probably wouldn’t help in the long run anyways. He was sure that they’d eventually get too soaked to latch onto any warmth, and then they’d just become a soggy cold trap for his body. But it was all that he had.

After Stiles was all dressed, he grabbed the things that were really needed to execute his plan successfully. Far back—into the near unreachable depths of his bottom dresser drawer—laid his secret weapon. It was a large garbage bag of mountain ash that Deaton had given him as part of the “just in case supplies”. Stiles never knew if he’d need to use mountain ash again after he crafted his baseball but, but it turned out that his new plan called for it.

If he wanted to create an inescapable barrier around the majority of the steel mill building to trap the alphas, then mountain ash was the go-to gadget. Before he ran out of his room, however, he made sure to grab the large plastic baggie of the trickster’s weed that he had charred earlier in the day. He stuffed it into the back pocket of his jeans and then headed out for Beacon Heights.

The drive into the city was a nightmare. There wasn’t any traffic, but Stiles still had to greatly reduce his speed. Parts of the highway were flooded with large puddles of water and the visibility was terrible from the heavy rain. Even the fastest setting on his windshield wipers couldn’t quite keep up with the downpour’s blur. He was lucky that it was late at night and that hardly anybody else was out on the roads.

Stiles pulled into the back parking lot of the steel mill and parked in-between two large cargo containers that were both big enough to conceal the jeep. He didn’t want to risk the alphas stumbling upon an out-of-place vehicle parked out in the front of what would amount to their trap. He also didn’t want to risk any unexpected steelworkers stumbling upon something that didn’t belong if they were to return. And despite the fact that the steel mill was closed for the night—as confirmed by Stiles’ Google search of the hours of operations—he still tried to anticipate the unexpected.

After taking a moment to mentally prepare himself to step out into the terrible rain and go up against the alphas, Stiles grabbed the mountain ash garbage bag, his baseball bat, and willed himself out into the cold. It was surreal to stand out in a dark and vacant parking lot with rain crashing down both on and around himself. However, he didn’t have the time to actually stop and think about how cool it was. He needed to get his plan into motion so that he didn’t end up with a nasty cold at the end of the night.

He walked towards the side of the building and set the bag of mountain ash down onto the wet asphalt. Stiles crouched down and went to tear a hole in one of the corners of the plastic bag so that the mountain ash could flow out like a funnel, but then something struck him. It was raining. Who was to say that the rain wouldn’t wash away the trail of mountain ash?

Stiles couldn’t believe that he hadn’t thought about the rain. He had woken up with his mind already focused on the original plan that he knew he needed to enact, which left very little brain power to take the huge storm into consideration. Now, there was a huge possibility that he drove out to Beacon Heights and got himself completely soaked for no good reason. He needed to make a decision on what to do.

Eventually, he decided that he might as well _try_. After all of the trouble that he went to in regards to crafting the plan and driving through a fucking hurricane to lay it down at the steel mill, he wasn’t about to drive back home without anything to show for it. He tore a hole in one of the corners of the garbage bag and began to walk alongside the side of the building, letting the ash form a trail behind his steps.

When he reached the back of the building, he looked back and expected to see a washed away trail of mountain ash. But he didn’t. The line remained untouched. He stared down at the dark line of fine particles, watching rain crash down upon it, and saw that the ash remained dry. It was as if the ash absorbed the water without retaining any moisture. It was like _magic_.

Stiles laughed to himself and continued to trail alongside the outside border of the building, forming a solid line of mountain ash. When he got around to the front, he clipped off the hole of the garbage bag by tying the end into a knot to keep it from spilling out more ash onto the ground. He couldn’t have any mountain ash visible from the front of the building. That would alert the alphas. He also couldn’t place a line anywhere near the front entrance, because that would only keep the alphas out of the place Stiles needed them to enter.

He slid open the towering front door of the steel mill and walked inside. There was no difference in temperature. It was just as cold as it was outside, although Stiles was pretty sure that the metal walls of the mill made the inside of the building into a giant refrigerator. He couldn’t really complain, though. At least the rain wasn’t pouring down on his head anymore. Instead, he could listen to the loud tapping noises of raindrops beating down against the metal sheets of roof.

Stiles pulled off his jacket and the two different shirts that he was wearing—shivering as the cold and rainy breeze blew across his body. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the separate plastic baggie that contained the burnt remains of the faux-wolfsbane. The bestiary had said that the trickster’s weed needed to be burned for it to be of any actual use, so Stiles ended up sticking the weeds into the oven until they were nice and charred.

Stiles reached into the plastic baggie and grabbed a handful of charred stems. He started to rub them across his naked torso, arms, and neck—as it was noted in the bestiary that its ability could only be activated by contact with the skin of a warm blooded being. The only problem was that it was a pain—an _actual_ pain—to scrub the scratchy weeds across his skin. It wasn’t anywhere close to the soft suds of soap.

After he was finished rubbing the scent of the stems into his skin, he put back on his two shirts and forcibly rubbed the fabric against his body. He needed the newly activated scent embedded within his shirts for his plan to work. Since it was far too risky to sit inside the steel mill and wait the alphas to come inside, he decided that he’d leave the shirts behind and wait outside until they entered the trap to investigate. Then, he could quickly close off the line of mountain ash and lock them behind the barrier.

He pulled the shirts back over his head and tucked them both away towards the back of the building. It would require the alphas to walk to the back in order to figure out where the scent was coming from, which would give Stiles some time to finalize the trap. Stiles hoped that the scent inside of his discarded clothes would be strong enough to fool the alphas. His whole plan kinda hinged on that factor.

Stiles gathered up the bag of mountain ash, his baseball bat, and his jacket. He hurried outside and let the rain wash down his bare shirtless torso for a couple minutes in an attempt to rinse the scent of trickster weed off of his skin. When he felt that he had endured a sufficient amount of time in the water, he put his jacket back on and zipped it up. He was practically freezing, but he knew that he’d get to rest in his warm bed after the alphas were caught.

He walked over to a corner of the parking lot—not too far from the entrance—and squeezed himself into a nest of metal oil barrels. It was a good hiding place. He could see the entrance to the building from where he remained crouched down behind the barrels, but it wasn’t so easy for outsiders to pinpoint his exact location because the barrels seemed so irrelevant. He would also be able to remove himself from his little hiding place and finish off the entrance with a line of mountain ash in a reasonable amount of time.

The lengthy wait for something to happen was nearly infuriating. There wasn’t anything for Stiles to do but sit down on the wet asphalt and stare over at the steel mill’s entrance. The rain refused to lessen up and Stiles was only growing more anxious and cold as the time passed. Roughly an hour passed and Stiles couldn’t figure out if he was falling asleep because he was tired or if he was succumbing to hypothermia.

It was clear that the alphas weren’t coming. Either they didn’t smell the trickster’s weed, or they just didn’t care about it. Maybe they knew that it was trap and didn’t bother crawling out of their little alpha hideaway to deal with something so trivial. It was such a waste of time and effort on Stiles’ part, which made him pretty mad when it came down to it.

Stiles picked himself up from behind the barrels and walked back into the mill. He collected his shirts from the ground and put them back on—completely disregarding the fact that they were filthy. It didn’t matter. He had serious plans to take a nice and hot bath when he finally got back home. After standing in the rain for an hour and wearing dirty steel mill floor shirts, he deserved it.

The moment Stiles jumped into the front seat of his jeep and turned on the engine, he cranked up the jeep’s heater to full blast and pulled out of the steel mill’s parking lot. Unsurprisingly, the rain had yet to calm. The road that Stiles needed to take in order to get back to the highway was covered with a muddy stream of water that had overflowed from the pooling water on the side of the road. It didn’t appear to be the biggest hazard in the world. Stiles’ jeep was certainly tall—capable of trucking through some minor water.

The jeep managed to get through the stream of rushing water. It was probably thanks to luck, but Stiles was sure that it was because he knew how to drive on stormy roads. And despite the fact that he was inching closer and closer back to his house, he was growing incredibly tired of what seemed to be the summer’s first eternal storm. It was so random and out of place, he wondered if it was supernaturally related. Yet, he couldn’t think of any supernatural creatures with the ability to control weather.

As Stiles continued down the road, everything was going great until he was forced to send his jeep to a crashing halt. The sight of a downed telephone pole decided to make itself visible through the white of the rain at the near last moment. It blocked the entirety of the main road, leaving Stiles with no other option but to take up alternative options. So he cut through a nearby shopping center parking lot.

The shopping center parking lot was fairly empty with the exception of a few lone cars. Although, those most likely belonged to the workers who were still required to carry through their late-night shifts at fast food joints despite the terrible storm. But not only was the parking lot empty, it was also somewhat flooded. The asphalt was laid unevenly in some areas, which led to the creation of some rather unavoidable pools.

Stiles sped through the majority of the water pools without any concern. They were shallow and practically nothing when compared to the stream of muddy madness that he had already driven through. However, he didn’t take into account the amount of water that was getting splashed up into the underbelly of his jeep—soaking the engine. He didn’t realize that the water was a real problem until his jeep sputtered down to a stall in the middle of the parking lot.

He tried to twist his key in any which direction, but the jeep did nothing but make the same whirling sound. There was nothing that he could do. The jeep’s engine had been successfully flooded and there wasn’t a way to bring it back to life. Especially not during the storm. He knew that he’d have to wait until the morning to call for a towing service to take it back down to Beacon Hills.

For the meanwhile, Stiles wasn’t fond of the idea that he’d spend the night in his jeep. Not when he was soaking wet and in desperate need of a long shower. He knew that he couldn’t call his father, because there would just be too many questions asked. He was also aware that he couldn’t call Scott—partly because his situation would require a reasonable explanation, but mostly because Scott’s mother probably took the McCall family car to her job for the night. And there was no way that Stiles was about to ask Scott to ride his bicycle down to Beacon Heights in a thunderstorm.

However, having Scott come pick him up on a bike seemed like a brighter idea when Stiles’ mind started to dwell on who he’d have to call. The obvious choice was Derek, considering the fact that he lived about five miles away and had a nice, dry Camaro with warmed leather seats. Stiles’ only slight reservations stemmed from the fact that he’d have to answer Derek’s question of the situation. But if having to deal with loud huffs and eyes rolling guaranteed a taxi home, Stiles was fine with it.

Stiles pulled out his cell phone and dialed Derek’s number. He hoped that something horribly weather related wouldn’t happen—like there being no service. Luckily, Stiles knew he could take a sigh of relief when he heard Derek’s voice answer with a gruff, “Hello?”.

“Hey, I’m kinda in a little trouble. I was wondering if you could come bail me out.” Stiles explained.

“Define _‘trouble’_.”

“My jeep’s engine got flooded. I’m stalled in the middle of a parking lot.”

“What the fuck are you even doing driving around in this weather? Roads are flooded.”

“Oh, wow. I didn’t even realize it was raining. No wonder my engine got flooded! I thought it just decided to take a nap.” Stiles mocked.

There was a long pause of seemingly dead silence through the line. Stiles momentarily wondered if Derek had the balls to actually hang up on him in such a time of crisis, or if the signal dropped because of the storm. But before long, Derek was back with a heavy and callous groan that was filled with Derek’s special brand of disgruntlement.

“Where are you right now?” Derek asked.

“Uhh—” Stiles wiped the condensation off of his driver’s side window with the sleeve of his jacket to look around. “—Lorebaker Marketplace.”

“You’re in Beacon Heights? What were you doing out here?”

“Sightseeing!” Stiles shouted. “Jesus, Derek. Can you just come pick me up without all of the stupid questions? I’m soaking wet and cold. I’m going to actually _die_ of hypothermia if you’re not getting your ass downstairs and into your Camaro right now.”

Derek couldn’t believe the sarcasm that Stiles managed to continuously emit from his body. Even in the direst of situations, he was still trying to be an obnoxious asshole that didn’t take anything seriously. Even when he was in desperate need of somebody’s help, he never lost that piece of him. It was oddly endearing.

“Don’t move. Stay in your car. I’ll be there in a couple minutes.”


	21. It All Goes Tumbling Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek has to get Stiles back to Beacon Hills, but there's a big problem in the way.

When Derek pulled into the parking lot of the marketplace, he could see Stiles’ bright blue jeep stalled in the middle of the flooded parking lot. So many questions filled his mind. Although, most of his curiosity seemed to stick around trying to figure out why humans got themselves into so many unnecessary messes. Even Derek’s human cousins—before the fire—seemed to fall into otherwise avoidable situations. 

Then again, Derek’s past was full of mistakes. He was no saint. He knew that there was a list of all the things in his life that he could have avoided, if only he had taken the time to sit down and rationalize. If only he had been smarter and wiser. If only he had been able to see the unforeseen punishments and predicaments caused by his decisions. Suddenly, he didn’t feel too interested in picking at Stiles’ bad decisions...even if they were foolish. 

Derek parked his car alongside the jeep and stepped out into the rain. He was wearing a typical outfit with a leather jacket. Stiles wondered if Derek loved leather jackets so much that he actually chose against wearing something with a hood to keep his head dry or if he actually didn’t have another jacket. Nonetheless, Derek looked pretty damn fantastic even with the rain washing through his hair and off his sharp cheekbones. 

“You can’t just leave the jeep in the middle of the parking lot.” Derek said, walking around to the driver’s side of the jeep. “Put it in the correct gear so I can push it into a parking spot for the night.” 

Stiles switched to the correct gear and hopped out of the jeep to get out of the way. Derek made very quick work of pushing the jeep into an empty parking spot. In fact, it barely looked as if he was even exerting any kind of energy. Supernatural strength was clearly a plus. It made Stiles somewhat jealous that he couldn’t just do it himself. Having to rely on werewolves got annoying sometimes. 

After the jeep was parked and the headlights were switched off, Stiles locked the doors. As Derek hurried back to the Camaro—motioning for Stiles to follow his direction—Stiles debated on whether or not to grab the garbage bag of mountain ash and the wolfsbane bat out of the trunk. If he left everything behind, there was a risk of the tricked out baseball bat being spotted by the tow truck people in the morning. But if he decided to take everything with him, then he knew that he’d have to explain to Derek. 

He figured that having to explain a homemade mace to curious tow truck people would be a far more difficult than cooking up a lie to feed Derek. After all, Derek already knew about the baseball bat. The garbage bag of mountain ash was the problem. Although, it wasn’t like Stiles couldn’t just explain that the mountain ash was for extra protection. 

Stiles got into the Camaro and tried his best to nonchalantly stuff the bag of ash down to the floor between his feet. He put the baseball bat on the floor in the back and tried not to let the barbed wire catch to any part of the Camaro’s leather interior. The last thing Stiles wanted to do was fuck up Derek’s car since he was nice enough to drive down and pick him up. 

“What is that?” Derek asked.

Stiles could hear a slight uptick of alarm in Derek’s voice. He closed his eyes and geared up to explain the garbage bag. However, when he turned to face Derek, he quickly noticed the mixed facial expression of concern and anger on the werewolf’s face. Derek wasn’t even looking down to where the garbage bag was sitting on the floor. He was looking directly into Stiles’ eyes.

“What is what?” Stiles asked curiously. He knew that he was being questioned about something, but he wanted to poke around Derek’s mind before fessing up to anything. Maybe it wasn’t so bad. 

“You—” Derek paused, leaning in closer to analyze Stiles’ scent. “You’re an idiot. Rivularis?! You were out here trying to lure the alphas. You were trying to lure the alphas to you!”

Derek drove off as quickly as he couldn’t without hydroplaning out of the parking lot. The roads were still in the process of flooding, but Derek managed to stay in his own lane. The Camaro rode easier than the jeep. Despite the pounding rain, the Camaro seemed to glide softly through the water. It wasn’t as bumpy and wild. 

“You really do just have to be an asshole about everything, don’t you?” Stiles insulted, crossing his arms. “We’ve been actively tracking after the alpha pack for months. What’s the difference between me seeking them out and me trying to get them to come to me instead?”

“For one, you have the backup from people with actual superhuman abilities to protect your ass from the alphas.”

“Not lately.”

“You know that you’re supposed to contact somebody else if you stumble upon where they’re hiding. You’re supposed to wait for us to get down to your location. Don’t pretend like you didn’t already know this. If anything, it’s common sense.” Derek scolded. “Plus, this rain didn’t do you any favors. It diluted your scent.”

The argument between the two of them only continued through the drive on the highway back into town. While Stiles attempted to battle against Derek’s hypocrisy, Derek tried to fight against letting Stiles think that the decisions he was making were wise. They weren’t. Messing around with the alpha pack wasn’t a game. Baiting them and trying to lure them would only amount to terrible ends. 

When Derek pulled off of the highway, he found that the majority of the main roads were heavily flooded—more than the roads back in the city. He couldn’t just cut through the waters to get to Stiles’ house, even though that would have been the quickest way, because then he’d risk stalling his own engine. 

The only way to get to the opposite side of the town where Stiles’ house was located was to take the back roads. And while the back roads were typically used by the locals, the road was quite the piece of work. It stretched to a somewhat higher elevation and bordered a lake with its twists and turns. It was mandatory to keep extreme attention on the road whilst driving, but the storm only increased the amount of attention needed. 

“Are we just going to always have the same arguments? If you just focus really hard, I’m sure you’d be able to not be a total hypocrite.” Stiles said. “It’d be a pretty good look for you, Derek.”

“There’s nothing hypocritical about what I’m saying.”

“Really? The fact that you can run around and do whatever you want if it means finding the alphas, but then I have all these rules and guidelines glued to me? What makes you think you’re the boss? Because you’re an alpha? I’m not your beta.”

“I can take a meeting with the alphas. You can’t. They will kill you if they get even the slightest chance to do so, and you’re trying to make it easy for them.”

“You couldn’t even take a meeting with that alpha down in the subway tunnels. Just because you’re an alpha and all big and muscle-ly doesn’t mean you’re strong enough to take on the alphas. Just because you’re a werewolf and I’m a human doesn’t mean that I’m supposed to follow everything you say.”

Derek sighed. “You don’t follow anything I say.”

“I know. Why haven’t you figured out that the two of us doing our own separate things is the only way that we can actually work together? You make things so hard.” Stiles cringed at the last word, shifting his position in the seat. If felt weird to use that word in relation to Derek after the whole post-workout session. 

“You’re going to get yourself killed. These alphas are something to be feared. It’s not a game.” 

“I wasn’t scared of Peter. I wasn’t scared of the Kanima. I’m not scared of these alphas.” Stiles stated. “And if they’re so big and bad like you’re making them out to sound, then why do they spend all of their time hiding away in places we can’t even fin—” 

Stiles couldn’t even finish his question because his attention was diverted to something that caught his eye in the passenger side-view mirror of the Camaro. There was a figure trailing behind them. It was a slight distance away, but it appeared to be hell-bent on closing the distance. The rain made it difficult to see who it was, but he could tell that it was the dark silhouette of a person—gunning for the Camaro—with great bright eyes of red. 

“Derek…” Stiles began. 

The simple call of his name sounded slow and somewhat distressed. It was contrastingly different from the tone Stiles had been using during the rest of the conversation, which made Derek’s ears perk up. Instantly, Derek knew that something was wrong. He just didn’t know what it was. 

“What?” Derek asked, turning to look at Stiles—who seemed to be focused on looking out into the side-view mirror.

“Uh, I don’t want to freak you out or anything, but we’ve got an alpha tailing us.” Stiles explained. “And it doesn’t look like it’s going to cool its heels anytime soon. You should probably step on the gas.”

Derek glanced up to the rear-view mirror and noticed that there was a shadowed figure with red eyes closing in towards the back of the car. He tried his best to see who it was. He looked for notable features, but the rain was keeping his eyes from doing the best they could do. Although, he could see that it was a medium sized male—bare-chested and running with ferocity. 

He punched the gas. Derek knew that he couldn’t accelerate to the speeds he needed to escape from the trailing alpha. Werewolves had the ability to match the speed of a moving car. It wasn’t a difficult task to do. However, as the rain prevented Derek from picking up too much speed, it did the same with the alpha. Running across a slick surface of fresh water was dangerous, even to a werewolf. 

“I’m not going to be able to lose him like this. He’s going to trail us the whole way.” 

“Well...try!” Stiles shouted, keeping his eyes on the figure behind them. “I’m assuming that you bought this car because it’s fast and not just because it’s a sex-magnet, right? Can you put some damn mileage between us and that alpha, please?!”

“If I go any faster in this rain and around these turns...I’m going to kill us.”

“And if you don’t put some alpha power into your pedal pumping, then that alpha is going to have us for dinner.”

Derek gripped his hands on the steering wheel tighter and eased his foot down onto the gas pedal to increase speed. He was doing fifty-five in a thirty-five mile per hour zone. The twists and turns of the road were already dauntingly treacherous in bright, dry weather. The fact that it was practically pitch black—with the exception of the Camaro’s lone headlights—and the addition of the monstrous downpour made things even more difficult. 

The slight increase of speed seemed to make a difference. As the guardrail reflectors flashed by in the moonlight, Derek tried to keep his attention penned to the road with the occasional peer into the rear-view mirror. The alpha didn’t appear to be able to keep up with the mixture of increasing speed and a wet road. The gap between the Camaro and the alpha’s figure started to stretch as the chase continued. 

“We’re losing him.” Derek breathed, staring up into the rear-view mirror—watching the shadowed figure fade into the mist behind their treads. “We need to figure out where we’re going. He’ll follow us to yo—”

“DEREK!” Stiles screamed, pulling Derek’s attention back to the road in front of them. 

In the middle of the short straight away of the road, there stood an unyielding figure. It was the same figure as the one who had just been chasing them from behind. It was the same tall, somewhat average male form with the same red eyes. There was no question. Except, the figure looked uninterested in the chase. It looked to finish the chase this time around. 

Before Derek could actually assess the approaching threat, he had already turned the steering wheel instinctually—attempting to avoid the alpha. Unfortunately, the rain and speed worked against Derek’s idea. Instead of simply swerving around the figure, the Camaro slid into the metal guardrail with a loud, tearing crash, broke through the reinforcement, and tumbled down the muddy ravine before crashing hood first into the choppy lake. 

Both Stiles and Derek were knocked unconscious from the rollover down the ravine. As the car began to sink down into the depths of the lake, the icy water began to rush into the car through the back driver’s side window that had been shattered. The harsh sting of the water on Stiles’ skin shocked him back to consciousness. He was momentarily confused as to what was happening, but he was very quickly able to figure out the situation he was in. 

“Shit.” Stiles groaned, blinking his eyes. “D—Derek.” 

Stiles looked over to make sure that Derek was okay, but he found that Derek was still unconscious. He was slouched over in the driver’s seat, with his head and face pressed forward into the deployed airbag. He was bleeding from a gash on the right side of his forehead, which panicked Stiles when he spotted it. It was only a cut, something that a werewolf could heal from, but the situation heightened Stiles’ nerves. 

The water was filling into the interior of the car at an alarming pace, which sent Stiles into a speedy-like pace. He couldn’t see the surface of the lake anymore. Everything was dark and the water was rapidly pouring down over his body. He didn’t know how far down into the lake he was falling and he didn’t know how far he’d have to swim until he could get to the surface. 

Just as the water reached his upper torso, Stiles managed to unbuckle his seatbelt. He hurriedly reached down into the water and grabbed onto Derek’s seatbelt, calling out his name in desperation as he tried to release the locked buckle. Time seemed to pass so slowly, yet the water failed to stop rushing in. Derek’s seatbelt was locked and wouldn’t unfasten, which sent Stiles into a panicked state of attempting to pull and rip out the buckle. 

He couldn’t do it. The water had reached the tip of his chin, forcing Stiles to tip his head upwards as he continued to pull on Derek’s seatbelt and scream for him to wake up. Nothing seemed to work and the harsh reality began to stab at Stiles’ brain. He would die if he didn’t get out. He would end up at the bottom of the lake if he didn’t make a decision to swim to the surface.

Time seemed to freeze, along with the water, as Stiles took one last look to Derek. He spun around towards the passenger side’s door and pulled the handle, kicking the door open against the weight of the water. He took a deep breath and pushed off from the surface of the passenger seat with his feet—catapulting himself up into the openness of the lake towards the surface. 

Stiles kicked and propelled himself towards the surface with his arms. He fought against the urge to look back down towards the sinking Camaro—back to Derek—and continued to swim. His lungs were running out of his last breath and would start to burn fairly soon. And while the dark water made things very disorienting, Stiles worked hard to get to the surface. The possibility of the alpha waiting at the surface wasn’t even something circulating inside of Stiles’ mind. 

A loud, gasping inhale of breath broke the surface of the choppy water as Stiles broke up into the open air. As he tread water, he looked around to see what was around him. All he could really see what stormy waves all around him and the ravine that they had rolled down. 

He looked up towards the road in an attempt to see if he could spot the alpha that had appeared in the middle of the road before the crash. To Stiles’ surprise, there wasn’t any shadowy figure to be seen. And although Stiles couldn’t see anybody, he wasn’t too sure about the surrounding area being completely void of alpha presence. If anything, the alpha was waiting for him to get back to land. 

Stiles was just about to swim over to the muddy shoreline, when he heard a crash of water and a loud gasp of breath—followed by booming coughs. It was Derek and Stiles felt his heart pick up in pace. An overwhelming feeling of relief washed over his body. Suddenly, the feeling of being cold and almost entirely submerged in icy water didn’t matter. Derek was okay. That was it. 

“Derek!” Stiles cried out, waving his hand in Derek’s direction. 

“Are you—are you okay? Are you hurt?” Derek asked, swimming over to where Stiles was treading water. 

“I’m just a little banged up, but I think I’ll live. What about you? You were bleeding.”

“I’m okay. Don’t worry about me.” Derek said, calmly. He looked around at the shoreline and up to the road that they had fallen down from—scanning the area for the alpha. “We need to swim to shore.”

The two of them swam to the tiny shoreline, which wasn’t anything less than a pit of sticky mud. It took a couple minutes for them to reorient themselves on solid land after being pushed and pulled around by the stormy waves. But by the time it stopped feeling like they were being churned around, they had found a part of the ravine that wasn’t too steep to climb back up to the main road. 

Despite it not being extremely steep, the loose gravel and mud made it difficult to climb. Derek made use of his own weight and planted his feet deep into the mud with each step. He used his feet as anchors, preventing himself from slipping backwards down to the shoreline. He used some of the small and rooted shrubbery alongside his pathway to aid in pulling him up towards the road. 

Meanwhile, Stiles held onto the back of Derek’s soggy coat and used him like a werewolf escalator up the muddy hill. Derek didn’t seem to actually mind. In fact, he seemed like he was just desperate to get up the ravine and back onto sturdy ground. There was yet to be a word about whether or not Derek was secretly pissed about losing his car and almost drowning to death as a result of Stiles’ decisions. Stiles considered preparing for a yelling match. 

When the both of them got back up to the main road, Derek stopped in the middle of the road and looked around. He sniffed the surrounding air and tried to find and listen in for any distant heartbeats. An alpha could easily block their scent with blockbane, but they couldn’t hide their heartbeat. Werewolves also had a slight “sixth sense” among one another—meaning that they could somewhat “sense” the nearby presence of another werewolf given that certain conditions were right.

It slightly worried Derek that he couldn’t pick up any relatively close heartbeats from humanoid creatures, except for Stiles’. For a moment if made him think that perhaps the alphas found some sort of technology or new form of wolfsbane that could effectively mute somebody’s heartbeat. It could provide the ultimate concealment when paired with blockbane. But Derek couldn’t let a bunch of “what ifs” cloud his mind. He had to depend on what he had spent his life learning. There wasn’t a way for a werewolf to hide their heartbeat or else his mother would have taught him about it. 

“Do you hear anything?” Stiles asked. “Where’s the alpha?”

“He’s gone.”

Stiles let out a long sigh of relief. He was able to find some comfort in the fact that Derek couldn’t hear anything that signified the alpha still being around. Ultimately, neither himself nor Derek were in the proper condition to take on the alpha that had been chasing them. Between being soaking wet, covered in mud, and still somewhat dazed as to having tumbled down a ravine into a lake, fighting a vicious werewolf was out of the question. 

“On the bright side…we’re only about five miles away from my house.” Stiles gave an innocent smile and motioned for Derek to follow in his direction down the road.   
“Wait a minute.” Derek said, grabbing Stiles by the wrist. “I can smell something.”

Stiles lifted his shoulder up to his nose and took a whiff, nevermind the fact that all of his clothes were dripping wet with water from the lake and the non-stop downpour. Unless dirty water was what Derek was referring to in terms of scent, Stiles had nothing. 

“What? Do I still smell like that fake wolfsbane? Is the alpha going to come back?” Stiles asked.

“No. Your stupid plan to attract the alpha washed away along with my car.” Derek grumbled. “There’s a pair of fragmented scents from two different alphas here. We weren’t being pursued by one alpha. There were two of them.”

“The alpha that was waiting in the middle of the road for us…” Stiles acknowledged. “It wasn’t the same alpha as the one that was chasing us from behind.”

Derek nodded. He looked around at the surrounding forested area once more, attempting to find any glimpse of hidden figures, and then started off in the direction towards Stiles’ house. It was foolish to stand around in the rain, even if they were already wet and weren’t going to get any drier. At the very least, they could make their way towards actual shelter and maintain whatever conversation was brewing. 

“Do you remember back at the jewelry store when Isaac got shot?” Derek asked.

“Yeah, why?”

“Do you remember how I explained that I couldn’t read the alpha scent left behind in that jewelry store because it seemed to switch behind a combination of different scents?”  
“Are you saying that the alphas from the store are the same alphas that just tried to kill us?”

“I think so.” Derek confirmed. “The scents of these alphas are similar to the ones from the jewelry store. The only problem is that these scents aren’t complete. They’re fragments from the changing combination of a full scent.”

“Let me guess. Fragmented scents equate to not being able to accurately track the scents.” Stiles guessed.

Derek didn’t answer right away. He stayed silent for a moment—staring down at the rain striking down against the dark road ahead of his own steps. The reluctance to answer the question made Stiles think of two potential reasons as to why Derek didn’t want to speak. Either he was taking his sweet time to really analyze the question asked, or he was tired of having to deliver bad news about not being able to properly track the alphas. 

“Yes…and no.” Derek finally spoke up. 

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t follow the fragmented scents around the way I could follow a full scent…like yours or Isaac’s. But if I came in close proximity to the scent fragments, I’d be able to hang onto the scent notes long enough to locate where it’s originating.” 

It was Stiles’ turn to pause for a minute. In all of his wildest dreams, Stiles never imagined werewolf rules being so hectic. Having supernatural abilities seemed like so much fun, but all of the small footnote details really soured the idea. With all of the hurdles and technicalities, Stiles couldn’t imagine how Derek made it through his life as a werewolf. In fact, he couldn’t imagine how Scott would have handled everything if he had been in on the whole alpha problem throughout the summer.


	22. Welcomed Warmth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Following a long walk in the treacherous rain, Stiles and Derek arrive at the Stilinski residence.

In retrospect, walking five miles hadn’t seemed like such a big deal. Five miles flew by so quickly when covered through the use of a car. Plus, the distance between the ravine that they had fallen down and the front porch of Stiles’ house had seemed so close in Stiles’ mind. Nonetheless, the walk to Stiles’ house took just a little bit over an hour.

The walk was nothing short of torture. There was a reason that people didn’t typically decide to take hour-long walks in the middle of the night during a thunderstorm. The weather alone was enough to nearly push Stiles into a frenzy of madness. It was a miserable time and Stiles wanted nothing more than to have the ability of flight or teleportation. Even the ability to maintain a hot body temperature through near-midnight chills and icy rain was a desirable dream.

Neither Stiles nor Derek maintained any real conversation throughout the hour-long stroll through the rain. The two of them had begun to grow increasingly frustrated with their situation after the first thirty minutes or so, and decided to just keep to themselves for the remainder of the journey. They had both individually feared that things would only grow more unbearable if they were to slip into some sort of argument—thus the reason for the decision to just stay quiet. Though, despite the mutually decided period of silence, Stiles did make a couple off-handed whines about chaffing.

When the two of them finally got to the front porch of the Stilinski residence, they both wanted to weep from the overwhelming feeling of relief. Stiles unlocked the door and pushed his way into the warmth of the house—shivering to the change in temperature. Derek did the same, although he remained somewhat more stoic despite his obvious relief. And while Stiles rushed into the kitchen to crank up the heater on the thermostat, Derek tried his best not to drip all over the floors.

As Stiles sloshed his way upstairs to his bedroom, leaving a trail of water droplets in his path, Derek followed behind. When they got up to the room, Stiles switched on the lights and went directly for his dresser so that he could pull out some clean and dry clothes. Meanwhile, Derek’s attention fell almost immediately to the laptop that sat on Stiles’ desk.

It was the first thing that Derek had noticed because it was the only thing that had been lit up in the dark room before Stiles hit the light switch. On the laptop’s screen was a display entirely similar to an E-Book, except that the book wasn’t anything new. The digital book pages were nothing but scanned images of an old relic book. The pages were written in old Archaic Latin. Fortunately, Derek was able to read through the language with ease. From that, it was easy to see that Stiles had gotten his hands on a Bestiary, which is how he knew about Rivularis and its abilities.

“What is all of this, Stiles?” Derek questioned.

Stiles spun around with his fresh clothes in hands and looked directly at Derek. “Wait, are you being serious right now, or is this actually just going to segment into you getting upset because you already know what it is?”

“Do you have a death wish or something?”

“Ah, the latter…” Stiles tossed his clothes over to his bed and crossed his arms. “For your information, no, I don’t have a death wish. I have a whole ‘I don’t want to deal with the alpha pack’s existence’ wish.”

“Fucking around with some of the stuff in a bestiary is dangerous.”

“The alpha pack is dangerous! The alpha pack is here…and we’ve focused these past months on finding Erica and Boyd. Which is great, that’s been our plan, but we haven’t put any thought into actually killing the alpha pack and stopping them once we find your betas.”

Derek rolled his neck and stared up at the ceiling, somewhat irked. “I’ll focus on that when I get there.”

“Why do we have to wait? Why can’t we just do both, Derek? These alphas have remained practically docile for the entire summer, but they’re not going to stay that way forever as you can tell from what just happened.” Stiles motioned towards his soggy clothes. “As far as I’m concerned, they’re grinding down to a complete stop with this whole, ‘let’s be quiet and watch Hale and company track around the city looking for us’.”

“What does it matter? I’m ready for them to make a move. I’ll stop them. It was you that said they’ll get caught when they get sloppy and start making mistakes. Stepping out of the shadows and chasing us in a thunderstorm is sloppy. It was their mistake.”

“Yeah, but they’re going to kill people, Derek. They just tried to kill _us_! And they’re not just going to stroll out of the shadows. They’re going to sprint out—taking any lives they want as they zoom on by.”

“As I said before, I will stop them.” Derek solidified. “I have dealt with threats before. My family protected this town. We stopped threats that came here. None of this is new, Stiles.”

“It _is_ new, Derek.” Stiles exhaled, running his fingers through his wet hair. “I didn’t grow up as a werewolf in a family full of werewolves. I didn’t grow up around supernatural things. I didn’t grow up taking down supernatural threats. I didn’t grow up protecting an entire town. If we let the alphas stay quiet for as long as they want, then we’re going to end up with another Kanima situation and it’ll be too late.”

“You wanted to be involved with this kind of life. You wouldn’t have wanted so badly to help me look for Erica and Boyd during the summer if you didn’t. You wanted to be involved with this supernatural stuff and now you don’t like knowing that it’s more serious that you originally thought.”

“Yes! I wanted to be involved with the supernatural stuff. Not all of it. I just wanted a cool werewolf best friend. I didn’t want to be almost murdered by supernatural creatures. I didn’t want to have to take down supernatural creatures. I didn’t want to have to fight against and run away from psychotic beasts of the night!”

“Nobody’s asking you to stick around. I was going to do all of this without your help in the beginning. Dealing with this stuff is part of the job.” Derek trailed off.

“Well, I want the job description changed. I don’t want to wait for these alphas to murder me. The only supernatural people that I actually want in my damn life are Scott…” The intensity in Stiles’ voice halted and softened into something more of a whisper. “…and you.”

“What?”

“I mean, working with you isn’t a _travesty_. Yeah, it has had its shitty parts and you’re a total douche-canoe when you want to be one, but I don’t mind it. I don’t necessarily mind you.”

Stiles pressed his lips together innocently and tilted back on the heels of his soaked sneakers. He realized that what he had said was somewhat of a backhanded compliment, but it was kind of how his dynamic with Derek worked. Underneath everything, Stiles couldn’t get his brain to fess up to whether or not he wanted Derek in his life as an ally, or friend, or something else. All he knew was that his perception of Derek changed throughout the summer and he didn’t know how he’d adapt to not seeing Derek every day when it was all finished.

“I guess I didn’t necessarily mind you…when you weren’t getting yourself poisoned or attacked.”

Stiles smiled and Derek let the corner of his lips tug upwards like always. It seemed like it was almost never a full-on smile with him, but Stiles took what he got without a problem. After all, Stiles wasn’t really in an argumentative mood anymore. The sound of the storm that continued to rage outside of Stiles’ bedroom was pleasantly calming. And strangely enough, so was the rainwater that continued to drip down Stiles and Derek’s bodies as they stood in the room.

“I should get back to the loft.” Derek said. “Will you be okay here for the rest of the night?”

“Yeah, I think I’ll fix myself up with a hot shower.” Stiles chuckled softly. “What about you? How the hell do you plan on getting back to the loft, and don’t say that you plan on actually walking. It would take you all night to get back, especially with this stupid storm.”

“You don’t need to worry about me, Stiles. I’ll try to see if some taxis are still running. If not, then yes I’ll have to walk. It’s not a problem. I’m already sopping wet from our trip into the lake.” Derek explained. He shot Stiles a small wave and then turned around to head out the door. “Goodnight.”

As Derek walked through the threshold of Stiles’ bedroom door, he was called back by the sound of Stiles’ voice. Derek knew that something of the sort would probably happen. Stiles rarely agreed with Derek’s ideas and almost always had something to say about them in opposition. Whether or not Stiles’ commentary was positive or negative remained to be a mystery. That was, until Stiles actually opened his mouth and spoke.

“Look, just stay here for the night.” Stiles offered boldly. “My dad’s not getting back until tomorrow night and you shouldn’t have to go back out there in that storm just because I was the one who fucked up and got your car catapulted into a lake. And especially with the alphas advancing their tactics, you should just stay.”

“Stiles—”

“I’m serious. I’ll take the couch downstairs. Plus, this isn’t New York City. Taxi service definitely doesn’t run this late. And even if it did, they would have been smart enough to call it a night on account of the weather and the flooding roads.”

Derek didn’t fight the offer for very long. He couldn’t actually imagine having to suffer through a walk back to Beacon Heights. Despite the fact that his werewolf agility and endurance would have aided him in the journey, it would have still been a giant pain in the ass. The thought of getting even wetter than he already was didn’t act as a contributing factor in his decision, though. More water wouldn’t have made a difference.

“Do you have something that I can change into? Y’know, something that _actually_ fits.” Derek clarified; referencing back to the time that Stiles flaunted him around in front of his friend.

“Yeah, I probably have something.” Stiles trailed off, digging through the contents of his dresser. “We should both take showers first, though. You can use my bathroom and I’ll use my dad’s. We gotta get all this nasty rain water off—hey, you don’t mind free-balling it, do you?”

“I’ll manage.”

“Sorry. I don’t have any pairs of boxers that’ll fit you. Like, I mean, fit around your waist. You’re more built and stuff…” Stiles rambled, tossing Derek a clean t-shirt and pair of old _Joker_ pajama pants. “Clean towels are in the bathroom cabinet.”

The two ventured off to the separate showers and hurriedly jumped under the warm spray of comforting water. It felt good. Being dowsed with hot water instead of the icy rain and lake water was a pleasant change of pace and neither wanted to let go. Although, Derek was the first to get out of the shower, given that he had finished washing up and didn’t want to rack up the Stilinskis’ water bill. Stiles, on the other hand, took a good five minutes longer because the warmth was too enticing to leave behind.

When Stiles got back to his bedroom, Derek was standing barefoot by the edge of the bed—drying his hair off with a towel. The way that the t-shirt and pajama bottoms stuck against Derek’s still damp body and the way that his bicep flexed as he dried hair was enough to make Stiles stare. He tried not to focus in on the fact that the pajama bottom were pretty small on Derek’s body—small enough that they didn’t fall below his ankles—and the fact that they stuck pretty damn well on Derek’s ass.

“I just have to grab a pillow.” Stiles announced, walking over to the bed.

“Just take the bed. I’ll be fine on the couch for a night.” Derek said.

“No, I already offered you the bed and you accepted. So, take the bed. Our couch is kind of hard anyways and I’ve had ten years to get used to it.”

“Take the bed.”

Stiles sighed. “Are we really going to sit here and argue over who sleeps in _my_ bed or on _my_ couch? Why do you have to be so difficult? I’m just trying to let you sleep in comfort after I threw your car into a watery abyss!” 

“Stiles, I’ve grown accustomed to sleeping in all sorts of places. I’ve slept in the backseats of cars, on park benches, and up against the brick walls in Brooklyn alleys…trust me, your couch isn’t anything.” Derek divulged—shattering Stiles’ heart from the inside out. “Besides, we were just in a rollover accident, had to swim in icy water, and walked five miles. You don’t feel anything now, but you’ll be extremely sore tomorrow morning. So, just take the bed.”

There wasn’t anything more to the little debate. Derek had clearly won and was going to proudly take up his spot on the downstairs loaf of cement—ahem, _couch_. But it made Stiles feel terrible. Not only did he feel responsible for fucking up so badly with the Trickster’s Weed, but he also felt his heart clench as his mind quickly raced through the words Derek had said about sleeping in all sorts of places.

Stiles felt shitty for not thinking about it sooner. Yes, he knew that the Hale fire happened about six years ago. He knew that Derek, his sister, and his psychotic uncle were the sole survivors of the blaze. However, Stiles had never actually thought about what life was like after Derek lost everything—including his home. It struck him that Derek was left completely homeless, which was why he probably had experience sleeping in such unsatisfying places.

"We can both probably fit.” Stiles announced, keeping Derek from exiting the room. “At least, I think there’s room for two if we sleep back-to-back or something? That way, nobody has to sleep on that shitty couch.”

“Well, since you’d probably argue me into a pit if I declined, I guess.” Derek said. He walked over to the right side of the bed and pulled down the covers. “Now can I try get some sleep?”

Stiles glared at Derek as he switched off the bedroom light and climbed into bed. It wasn’t as tight of a squeeze as Stiles had originally thought. There was some wiggle room available so that the two of them didn’t have to sleep with their backs completely pressed together. It made everything more comfortable. 

“I’m sorry about your car. I don’t have a job or anything, but I’ll find out a way to give you some money. I mean, I already kinda owe Danny some money for having him toss out Isaac’s blood samples, but you’re next on my list for payment.” Stiles whispered, not quite sure if Derek was already asleep.

Derek didn’t automatically respond. He laid there with his back practically against Stiles’ and just let the sound of pouring rain and thunder sweep though the room. It was somewhat funny because Derek cared less about his car and more about the fact that Stiles wasn’t severely injured. He was glad that he didn’t have to figure out a way to explain to Stiles’ father why his son wasn’t coming home.

“Sorry about your baseball bat.” Derek piped up.

Stiles shifted around to face Derek, only to see Derek nonchalantly look over his shoulder with an innocent expression on his face. It was clear that he was joking, which was always enjoyably confusing to see. And especially with everything that had happened, the joke was even that much more impactful.

“Glad to see you’ve moved on.”

“I’ll be fine.” Derek said. “Just—when you think about doing something stupid like luring alphas to your location, how about you just don’t do it.”

“No promises.” Stiles turned back over to his side and closed his eyes.

Stiles was the first to wake in the morning. The room was quiet, unlike what it had sounded like when he had fallen asleep. The storm had finally stopped and Stiles wondered if he’d now need a boat to get around Beacon Hills. But the non-stormy peacefulness wasn’t the other thing that Stiles immediately noticed upon waking up.

He noticed that both he and Derek weren’t back-to-back anymore. Instead, Derek was lying on his back and Stiles was draped over his broad chest—with one of his hands resting gently on Derek’s left pectoral. Meanwhile, one of Derek’s arms was wrapped around Stiles’ waist—his hand and fingers were planted softly on the area of skin that wasn’t covered by Stiles’ t-shirt. The steady rise and fall of Derek’s chest and the sound of his beating heart was comforting.

The feeling of being cuddled up to Derek was fantastic. It felt warm and cozy and right. Derek’s body was like a living, breathing furnace. Werewolves were just naturally feverish in the right way, which was all too addictive. Stiles battled with himself on whether or not to just go back to sleep and pretend like he had never woken up. However, he didn’t know how Derek would react if he were the one to wake up and find Stiles sleeping across his chest.

Stiles got out of bed as quietly and as gently as he possibly could. He wanted to go ahead and let Derek sleep for however long he wanted to. Ultimately, there wasn’t a huge rush in time. The entire day was free—with the exception of Stiles having to get his jeep towed to the local auto body shop. In addition, his father wouldn’t get back from Sacramento until the evening.

What Derek had said the night before—about being sore in the morning—was the unfortunate truth. Stiles really felt it as he crept down the stairs. His back, his thighs, his arms…practically everything felt somewhat stiff and out of sorts. It was a huge discomfort, but Stiles didn’t complain. The rollover could have ended up way worse. Stiles liked to think that landing in the lake was _nothing_ compared to other options.

When Derek’s eyes eventually fluttered open, he noticed that Stiles wasn’t lying down beside him. It took him a moment to adjust to waking up in a place other than his own loft. However, the biggest thing that Derek was immediately confronted with was how well-rested he felt. He hadn’t woken up a single time through the night. A night of sleep without constant tossing and turning and nightmares wasn’t something that he had thoroughly enjoyed in quite a long time. It took him a minute to wrap his head around it, but when he finally did it, he pulled himself out of bed and went downstairs to find Stiles.

“Are you kidding me?! It’s a simple tow job for less than twenty miles! That’s a rip-off and you know it!” Stiles angrily shouted from where he stood in the kitchen. He was standing in front of the stove, sticking a spatula into a pan of frying bacon. “Fine…just _fine_. And you’ll get my jeep back to your shop around two? Fine. You guys have a _fantastic_ business that you’re running there.”

Stiles exhaled loudly and hung up the phone. He set it down on the counter beside the stove and got back to the bacon that he was trying desperately not to burn. Derek cleared his throat from where he stood at the kitchen’s entrance and announced his presence. And having been so caught up in arguing with the tow company, Stiles had forgotten that he wasn’t alone in his house. Derek had stayed the night.

“What are you doing?” Derek questioned.

“Charring strips of pig fat.” Stiles joked, switching off the stove burner. “And before you try to leave with some bullshit excuse like, ‘I need to get back to the loft’ or ‘I’m not hungry’, sit your ass down.”

Derek shrugged and took a seat at the breakfast table. A home-cooked meal wasn’t something that Derek had been able to enjoy for awhile. He wasn’t going to turn down the open opportunity, especially if it involved having to argue with somebody as unmovable as Stiles. Besides, he wasn’t exactly thrilled to go through the hassle of calling a cab to get back home.

Stiles set down two plates of food—consisting of bacon, eggs, and toast. He also set down some silverware, napkins, mugs of freshly brewed coffee, butter, and strawberry jelly. He took a seat directly across from where Derek sat and happily shoved a fork into the food on his plate. The two of them ate their food silently for awhile, taking time to enjoy the food. Although, while Derek tried to take his time, Stiles looked like he hadn’t eaten in days.

The two of them looked like the poster boys for what happened when the sandman hit somebody hard. Derek looked interesting with his wild hair and the sleep lines that marked down one of his arms and his neck. It was clear that he slept well throughout the night. The same could easily have been said for Stiles, who got to experience the joy of bed-head due to his decision to let his hair grow out.

“Shouldn’t you call Isaac and see if he survived the night or something? He seems like he’d freak out during thunderstorms.” Stiles snickered.

“I would, except my phone got ruined from our little swim.” Derek emphasized, giving Stiles a look from over the rim of his coffee mug as he sipped.

Stiles scoffed. “It could have gotten ruined before the crash.”

“Yeah, from the rain after I stood in that parking lot and helped move your jeep.” Derek explained. “Either way, my phone would still work if I had just stayed at home and refused to come pick you up.”

“Then you would have missed out on _such_ a fun time.” Stiles joked.

The conversation remained lighthearted, despite the events that had transpired the night before. Stiles was puzzled as to why Derek was so calm and seemingly happy. He guessed that it was because he was just happy to be alive. Maybe he was tired of his Camaro anyways. Maybe he had always fantasized about taking a late-night swim in a stormy lake after being thrown off a ravine. Unbeknownst to him, Derek’s cheery personality stemmed out of sheer relief that nothing _too_ horrible happened.

“I don’t think my dad will get too pissed about my phone getting drowned and ruined…or the problems with the jeep.” Stiles bit into his piece of toast absentmindedly. “I’ll ease him into the news when he gets home.”

 Derek stared from across the table while Stiles blankly gazed at the breakfast table’s surface and chewed on a piece of toast. As Stiles went on and on about how he didn’t really feel like getting in trouble for drowning yet another cell-phone—the first being back at the Beacon Hills High pool during the kanima attack—Derek noticed how a dab of strawberry jelly got smeared alongside the corner of Stiles’ lip due to his messy eating.

In the middle of Stiles’ conversation with himself, Derek grabbed the paper napkin from beside his plate and reached across the short distance of the small table. He pressed it gently against the corner of Stiles’ lip and wiped downward—cleaning the jelly off of his skin. He hadn’t really thought about doing it, but it just happened.

Stiles stopped talking in an instance and unintentionally began to stare amorously at Derek, who only seemed to be focused in on Stiles’ lips. It made Stiles’ heart flutter and his blood pump hot. It was like something out of a cheesy romantic comedy, yet it was interesting to actually have something like it happen in reality. Stiles didn’t mind it.

“You had something—” Derek pulled his arm back and crumbled up the used paper napkin.

Stiles raised an eyebrow. “How very cliché of you...” He chuckled under his breath and rubbed his fingers against where Derek’s napkin had been.

“If I were going for cliché, I would have used my thumb.”

“And then did something _gross_ like lick your thumb suggestively.” Stiles smiled.

The two stared at each other contently until Stiles realized that they were both done with their meals. He stood up from the table, grabbed both plates, and set them down into the kitchen sink. Derek was quick to jump up and offer to clean, but Stiles refused on account of being the murderer of Derek’s car. He wasn’t going to put Derek on dish-duty.

Derek followed Stiles back upstairs to the bedroom. Although he felt somewhat relaxed, he needed to get back to the loft and get back to work. Anything and _everything_ that remained ahead was frightening. The alphas had made a vicious move that was worse than scratching Stiles and stealing some stones. It was what Derek considered to be a game changer. He needed to snap out of his momentary daze of relief that nobody ended up dead in the car accident and focus on how dangerous the alphas would surely become in the approaching days.

“Where are my clothes?” Derek asked.

“I tossed them in the dryer after I woke up…except your leather jacket and your boots. That’s still hanging in the bathroom. The dryer is in the garage.”

After Derek got his clothes from the dryer, he took advantage of the phonebook that was on the kitchen counter and dialed up a cab service. A taxi was easier than taking a bus all the way back to Beacon Heights. The aggravation of having to continuously stop whilst on a bus was enough to steer Derek away from using them. Of course, his car was Derek’s preferred choice. However, his car wasn’t coming back anytime soon. That was something to be thought about at a later time.

“Did you call the cab?” Stiles’ voice came from the direction of the staircase, where he descended casually whilst rolling up the sleeves of his plaid shirt.

“Yes, I have to—” Derek turned around and paused when he saw that Stiles had a gym bag slung over his shoulder. “—what are you doing?”

Stiles ignored him and continued to fix the sleeves of his shirt. He just pretended that he hadn’t heard what Derek said. The whole, “you’re not doing this” was an old conversation that Stiles had already participated in many times. It was frustrating, but not so much that Stiles couldn’t handle it. He could definitely hold his own in addition to being extremely persuasive. Derek didn’t stand much of a chance.

“Do you think stunt doubles for movies could secretly be werewolves?” Stiles questioned.

“Stiles—”

“Like, what if they’re not on wires? What if they’re just super bouncy werewolves?”

“Stiles!”

“No, Derek.” Stiles barked. “I’m not going to answer your question because I already know where it’ll lead. I’m better off ignoring you until we get into the taxi and get to the loft.”

Derek didn’t automatically respond. He stayed quiet while carefully figuring out what to say next. Stiles was correct about knowing where the conversation would lead. He would tell Stiles that he needed to stay away from the whole alpha business and Stiles would blatantly refuse to acknowledge the dangers. It really was the same thing, but Derek didn’t want to go down that path for the millionth time. Maybe he needed to be more sincere and less controlling and demanding.

“I’m grateful, Stiles.” Derek started. “You’ve spent your entire summer doing things that most humans wouldn’t want to do. But I need you to get back to your life. Get ready for school. Fix your car. Let me and the rest of my pack finish the rest of this.”

“Not when we’ve made it this far.”

“I’ve been thinking about what you said last night—about wanting to be more direct with taking down the alphas and not signing up for this kind of shit. I understand and I can’t ask you to go on when things are changing like this.”

“Oh, so it takes a good night’s sleep to actually listen to me?”

Derek avoided Stiles’ eyes. “The alphas _did_ try to kill us. They’ll try to kill us whenever they get the chance. But if they know that you’re working with me, they’ll target you. They’ll go after Scott. They’ll go after your father. I have to be the one to finish this. And I _will_ finish this.”

“And you think that I’m not going to fight you on that whole, “me, myself, and I” bullshit?”

“No, because I think you understand this now.” Derek confirmed. “I don’t think you understood how dangerous this was until last night after the accident. Now you’ve seen them do more than steal some jewelry and scratch your neck. You know what they can do and what they will do.”

Stiles bit his lip. He didn’t want to outright admit it, but Derek was right. Everything that had happened during the summer hadn’t been strong enough to keep Stiles from continuing to actively pursue the alphas. Murdering that cocky asshole alpha from the subway tunnels, stealing jewelry, and infecting him with a lovey-dovey strain of wolfsbane wasn’t exactly something to expect from a pack of deadly alphas.

But the car accident was another world compared to everything else. It was scary. The sound of crushing metal and shattering glass while rolling down the ravine was something forever burned into Stiles’ mind. The eerily calm silence after crashing into the dark lake and the feeling of the icy water washing over his body was another thing he’d remember. But the most disheartening thing was seeing Derek unconscious in the driver’s seat, bleeding, and the dull ache inside Stiles’ stomach when he thought he’d watch Derek die.

“Don’t you think that the alphas already know that we’re working together? I mean, they scratched me at the charity auction. They probably already have my scent. Who’s to say that I’m not already in danger?”

“If they had your scent and thought that you were involved with my pack, they would have made a move towards you by now.”

“Last night—”

“Yeah, blame your fake wolfsbane for that.”

“Okay, but what about after the fake wolfsbane was washed away in the crash? My actual scent probably came back. Can’t they follow that back here to my house?”

“The excessive downpour last night protected you. The outside is basically a clean slate. There’s no scent trail outside that leads to your house. They don’t know where you live or where you’re going.”

Stiles exhaled slowly. It wasn’t a frustrated exhale by any means. It was more of a soft, agreeing exhale that let Derek know that his words had been understood. Contrary to Stiles’ original expectation, there wasn’t an argument this time around. He dropped his gym bag from his shoulders and set it down on the kitchen table.

“Well, then…do you think you can handle this without me?” Stiles joked. “Y’know, I won’t be there to crack a baseball bat over one of those subway werewolves’ heads when they’ve got you cornered.”

“Somehow, I think I’ll manage.” Derek said, giving a small smile.

Derek went back upstairs to the hallway bathroom and changed into his clothes. He put on his boots—which were still very damp—and slung his damp leather jacket over his shoulder. When he got back downstairs, Stiles was sitting at the kitchen table and was fiddling around with the zipper on the gym bag. He seemed somewhat upset about having to step out of the action for the last leg, but Derek knew that it was all for the best.

There was a honk outside in the front of Stiles’ home, signaling the fact that the taxi had finally arrived. Both Stiles and Derek immediately looked towards the front door. As Derek walked towards the door to leave, Stiles instinctively stood up from the chair to follow Derek’s trail. He wasn’t going to follow Derek outside and hop into the taxi, but leading Derek to the door just felt…right.

“Thank you—” Derek said, turning around to face Stiles. “—for helping. And when I find Erica and Boyd, I won’t forget to tell them that you helped all of this time.”

“Yeah, they probably wouldn’t believe it if I were to tell them myself.” Stiles laughed, but there was an awkward solemness to it.

Stiles realized that being done with the search for Erica and Boyd meant that everything would probably go back to what it was like before Scott got turned into a werewolf. Sure, Scott would still be a werewolf, but once Derek saved his betas and killed the alphas, there wouldn’t be any supernatural craziness flowing around through the air. Scott would never know about what happened during the summer. There would be no reason to link up with Derek.

Scott definitely didn’t like Derek, otherwise he wouldn’t have ever thought to use Derek like he had during the Gerard takedown. And according to what Scott knew, Stiles didn’t like Derek either. Scott had no knowledge of the fact that Stiles had just spent an entire summer growing closer to Derek, and there was no way that he ever could know about what went down. But in that, it meant that Stiles couldn’t spontaneously come back from summer vacation with a newfound appreciation for Derek Hale. It would present too many questions that Stiles couldn’t answer without having to explain that he lied to Scott for an entire summer.

It was weird, because there was a point in time in which Stiles also didn’t like Derek. Sure, he found Derek interesting, but he never actually liked him. Derek wasn’t the person that Stiles could ever imagine actually hanging around with. But…it was different now. Stiles _did_ like Derek. He _could_ imagine hanging around with Derek. Hell, he _did_ hang around Derek. For months.

He didn’t know what it would _actually_ feel like not talking to Derek and not working alongside him every day. Honestly, the thought of it made Stiles feel uncomfortable. But it wasn’t an “accidentally stepped in a puddle of water while wearing socks” or “having to use the bathroom whilst driving down a long, desolate highway” kind of uncomfortableness. It was more like a sickly feeling of dread that made his insides feel like they were made of scratchy, dry sand.

Stiles stood at the front door as he watched Derek walk down the driveway towards the taxi. Just as Derek made it to the passenger side door of the taxi, Stiles impulsively shouted out for Derek to wait a minute. He rushed back inside the house, grabbed a napkin from the napkin holder on the countertop, and grabbed a pen from the kitchen’s junk drawer. He quickly wrote down his phone number and barreled back outside to where Derek stood by the taxi, looking confused as ever.

“I’m not the local trouble hotline…” Stiles said, handing Derek the napkin. “But I figured that when you get a new phone, you might want to put my number back into it. Y’know, just in case something like this happens again or whatever.”

Derek grabbed the napkin and looked down at the rushed writing to make sure that he could still read it. He could. Derek gave Stiles a genuine smile and got into the taxi cab. He gave the cab driver the address he needed to get back to and let him set off towards Beacon Heights, meanwhile Stiles watched the cab drive off into the distance before heading back into his house.

Derek found the napkin to be funny. Not because Stiles was so eager to make sure that Derek would have his phone number “just in case”. And not because Stiles drew a rushed drawing of a smiley face next to the number. No. It was funny because the summer had started off with something as stupid as Derek giving Stiles a napkin and ended with something as stupid as Stiles giving Derek a napkin.

 


	23. Epilogue: The Summer's Conclusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The summer draws to a close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the epilogue. I personally don't know if I'm even using that word in the correct sense for this piece, but this chapter basically works to tie up a couple minor things.

When Sheriff Stilinski got back home from his conference, he wasn’t upset about the jeep’s engine getting flooded. With the news of the freak summer thunderstorm and flooding, it was understandable. Although, Stiles did make sure to withhold information about how he was out in the middle of the night trying to lure vicious werewolves into a trap.

The repairs to the jeep, however, still cost a pretty penny. Luckily, John understood that the hulking piece of crumbling metal was something sentimental to not only himself, but to Stiles as well. The jeep was the first vehicle that Stiles’ parents bought together as a married couple back in 1985. It wasn’t something that Stiles was going to let go, despite the fact that it had to be worked on quite a bit. It was worth it and Stiles’ father agreed.

Unfortunately, the work on the jeep was extensive and it was required to spend a few nights at the local auto body shop while parts were delivered and the jeep was fixed. Being without means of convenient transportation was aggravating, but if Scott could deal with mostly over ever having the use of his bicycle from the eighth grade, then Stiles could survive a few days. Plus, it wasn’t like riding on the handlebars of Scott’s bike was anything new. But to Scott’s own luck, the days of riding around his bicycle was over. He had finally purchased the motocross bike that he had been eyeing for the majority of the summer.

Stiles was slightly confused when he heard the sound of a roaring motor pull up into his driveway. At first, he thought that maybe it was Derek. Maybe he had purchased a motorcycle or something. But when the overly excited knocks started banging on the front door, Stiles remembered that Scott had been thinking of buying a motocross bike. Besides, Derek wouldn’t knock like that.

Wednesday was Beacon Hills High Orientation. For freshmen, it was the day where some senior volunteers would lead them around the campus and show them where everything was located—classrooms, bathrooms, and the cafeteria were the star attractions. For everybody else, the goal was to pick up class schedules, see if any of their classes matched up with their friends’ schedules, and then get back home to cry about the summer coming to an end.

Stiles and Scott had four classes together— _Economics_ and _P.E_ with Coach Finstock, _History_ with Mr. Westover, and _English_ with a new teacher, Ms. Blake. The best part about Stiles collecting his class schedule was finding out that he had _Chemistry_ with Mr. Duncan, not Mr. Harris. After getting stuck with the asshole teacher for his freshman and sophomore years, it was a nice change to pick up a schedule without seeing his name anywhere in sight.

The following days of the week seemed to fly by quickly. Stiles wasn’t sure if it was because some supernatural time spirit was fooling around with time, or because Stiles wasn’t occupying his time with all of the stuff that he had been. Stiles only grew anxious as time passed. It took a great deal of strength to not drop by the loft for a couple minutes—just to see how everything was going.

Stiles wasn’t afraid to admit that he missed everything. It felt so unbearably boring not being able to get out there in the night and help. It sucked not being able to speak with Derek, or train with him, or just…be around him. It was a feeling of inescapable longing that Stiles wasn’t yet sure if he completely understood. All he really knew was that not getting any phone calls or text messages from Derek was started to get under his skin.

Sunday night, Stiles was up in his room getting ready to go and pick up Scott at his house. It was the night before school and Scott had texted Stiles about how he wanted to get one more thing done before junior year officially started. Stiles didn’t know what the hell Scott was talking about. A motocross bike seemed to be more than enough. But then again, Stiles wasn’t really ready to turn down one last night of shenanigans before the weight of getting up early in the morning and having to do homework in the afternoon began to press down on his shoulders.

Stiles grabbed his wallet, keys, and his newest phone from atop his dresser and rushed downstairs. He was supposed to pick up Scott at eight o’clock, but was running a little late because he still wasn’t quite accustomed to setting aside an extra amount of time to comb and style his longer hair. He wasn’t worried, though. Scott probably wouldn’t mind.

Just as soon as Stiles got outside of his house and locked the front door, his phone started to ring. He figured that it was Scott calling to ask where he was and why it was taking him so long to leave, but to Stiles’ surprise, it was from an unknown number. At first, Stiles’ mind immediately shot to it probably being some random person trying to sell a product, but then he remembered that Derek probably got a new phone.

“Hello?” Stiles answered.

“Hey.”

It was such a simple word, yet it made Stiles stop in his tracks towards his driveway. He just stood there for a couple seconds, surrounded by darkness and all of the sounds that the night made, contemplating what he should say. He didn’t want to sound extremely excited that Derek finally called—even though he was. He didn’t want to sound somewhat annoyed that it took Derek this long to finally call—even though he kind of was. And he really didn’t want to sound completely unmoved that Derek decided to call—because he really wasn’t.

“Hey.” Stiles finally spoke and continued to walk towards his jeep.

“I just thought I’d call…now you have my number.” Derek explained.

Stiles slipped into the driver’s seat of the jeep and started the engine. “Well, it took you long enough.” He joked, pulling out of the driveway.

“I’ve been busy.”

“I know.” Stiles said. “Did you find them yet?”

There was a long pause of silence from Derek’s end of the line. It was the kind of silence filled with tension. The kind of silence you’d expect somebody to create when they didn’t know what to say next, or when they _did_ know what to say, but couldn’t yet bring themselves to open their mouths. The silence only solidified what Stiles already thought.

Erica and Boyd hadn’t been found yet.

“No, not yet.” Derek confirmed with a quiet sigh. “I think we’re getting closer, though. They have to be somewhere in this city. We’re going out again tonight. Peter and I are taking Butchertown and Isaac’s going to sweep through some of the shopping and downtown areas.”

“Sounds fun.” Stiles nodded to himself, forgetting momentarily that he wasn’t speaking to Derek face-to-face. “Yeah, Scott’s taking me out tonight. Apparently he wants to get himself something before junior year starts tomorrow. He wants me there for support. I just hope it’s not something drastic like dyeing his hair blond, or getting a body piercing, or…I don’t know…getting a tattoo.”

“Sounds fun.” Derek repeated, jokingly.

“I’m counting on it…” Stiles paused. “…and good luck.”

“Thanks.”

The two disconnected their conversation at the same time. In Beacon Heights, Derek readied himself to leave the loft in exchange for a night of searching for his betas. Meanwhile, back in Beacon Hills, Stiles rounded a street corner and pulled onto Scott’s street. He couldn’t help but feel as though he wasn’t doing enough with his last night of freedom. He felt as though he could be out there with Derek and the others, working to find Erica and Boyd.

But as Stiles continued to drive, he could see Scott waiting patiently on the sidewalk in front of his house. He looked content and had sounded so excited about the new school year on the phone. Stiles didn’t want to be the one disrupt that kind of feeling within Scott, even though he truly did want to be out there in the night with Derek. That was just the way that things had to be for the moment.

Stiles didn’t know what the world would bring forth in the nearing weeks, but he hoped that things would be resolved. He trusted Derek. He trusted Derek’s strength as an alpha. He hoped that Derek would be able to successfully rescue Erica and Boyd, and more importantly…that he would be able to clean up the alpha pack problem before things got too bad.

But despite the many ways he fantasized about things getting resolved, Stiles couldn’t manage to shake the dull ache that lurked deep in his gut. He couldn’t help but feel as though there was something still out there—something terrible. Still, Stiles just tried to wash it away from his thoughts and hoped that it was nothing more than his sadistic, overactive imagination.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Remember: questions, criticisim, and comments are always welcome. If you liked the story or have any questions about the story (or future work for this series) feel free to leave a comment. Also, you can send me asks at colethewolf.tumblr.com/ask

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. Comments and criticism are welcome, just leave a comment below. You can also send me asks on my Tumblr, colethewolf.tumblr.com.


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